


Where the Wild Thing Are

by xavier87



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Clexa, Clexa Endgame, Eventual Smut, F/F, Fluff, Hybrids, Loss of Virginity, Minor Character Death, Smut, Soulmates, Vampire Clarke Griffin, Vampire Hunters, Vampires, Werewolf Clarke Griffin, Werewolf Hunters, Werewolves, soccer player lexa, travelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:48:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 72,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24994912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xavier87/pseuds/xavier87
Summary: The blonde hid behind the rooftop parapet, the noise of the cars below drowning out the slight crunch of her combat boots on the gravel. She knew she had to be careful and silent. Her target would flee at the smallest sign of trouble, and then she would have to start all over again. Not that she really minded, the chase was her favorite part of the game after all. She could feel the excitation of the imminent fight creeping up on her, her pupils dilating, the blood in her veins burning, her teeth showing from under her snarl. She had been tracking the girl for the main part of the night already, and she couldn’t wait to finally corner her and end it. One of them would not see the sun rise in the morning, and she already knew who it would be.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa, Octavia Blake/Lincoln, Other Relationships
Comments: 327
Kudos: 668





	1. Chapter 1

The blonde hid behind the rooftop parapet, the noise of the cars below drowning out the slight crunch of her combat boots on the gravel. She knew she had to be careful and silent. Her target would flee at the smallest sign of trouble, and then she would have to start all over again. Not that she really minded, the chase was her favorite part of the game after all. She could feel the excitation of the imminent fight creeping up on her, her pupils dilating, the blood in her veins burning, her teeth showing from under her snarl. She had been tracking the girl for the main part of the night already, and she couldn’t wait to finally corner her and end it. One of them would not see the sun rise in the morning, and she already knew who it would be.

A glance over the railing, the coast seemed clear. Stepping back to gather enough momentum, the lean woman ran to the edge and jumped the two-meter gap between the buildings, landing with a quiet roll. Back on her feet in less than a second, she hid behind a corner, holding her breath. The absence of running footsteps brought a smirk to her face. She was still undetected. _Perfect._

Despite her leather jacket, she could feel the hair on her arms stand up, signaling that she was getting closer. She slowly approached the edge of the roof, making sure her footsteps wouldn’t betray her presence. Squinting, she could make out a form crouching in the alley below. _Finally._ The blonde stealthy made her way down the fire escape stairs that ran almost all the way down onto the alley. Once she reached the last platform, she took a quiet breath and pirouetted over the railing, landing next to the black form, a silver knife already in her hands.

The girl jerked at the sight of her, a look of panic in her pale eyes. The blonde could see the red smears on the girl’s T-shirt, where her knife had caught her earlier. The wound had stopped bleeding, but it still had to hurt, seeing how she was crouched in pain.

“Please,” she tried to plead. “Don’t hurt me. I haven’t done anything to you. Why are you hunting me?”

“Because I know who you are. A monster. A cold-blooded killer, reaping men, women, children. Tell me, how many have you already ended despite your age?” the woman asked, a grimace of hate and cold rage on her face.

“I don’t kill people. Whatever you think you know, you are wrong. Not all of us are the same.”

“Not all the same? Please,” she spit. “That’s what all you monsters do. Tearing people apart, destroying families. But you, no, you won’t hurt anybody ever again.”

The blonde spun the knife in her hand before holding it tightly, ready to strike. The young brunette was still looking at her like a deer caught in the headlights, unable to move or even protect herself from the pending attack. She didn’t look a day over 18, but the woman knew that the juvenile appearance was deceiving. She had to kill her quickly, before the monster regained its composure. Pulling her arm back, she took a breath and launched forward, her silver knife pointing at the girl’s throat. It was about halfway there when, coming out of nowhere, a strong hand caught her wrist, stopping the movement. She didn’t have time to realize what had happened that she felt herself fly back, her body colliding with the wall behind her, the wind knocked out of her.

The woman, still stunned, tried to regain her footing, but before she could stand straight, a pale hand had caught her by the throat, lifting her a good foot off the ground. Her vision started to falter with the lack of oxygen, but she managed to stare at her assailant. It was a woman, and a truly gorgeous one at that. Pale complexion, pink lips with a beauty mark above them, round face, golden hair. Her eyes were glowing red in her state of fury, and her snarl revealed two pointy upper canines. A vampire. _Crap_.

“Are you well, Octavia?” the vampire asked.

“I’m fine, Clarke,” replied the young brunette. “I would have stopped the knife you know; I was just giving her a chance to leave with her life.”

The blonde vampire emitted a noncommittal noise, and turned her attention back to the hunter.

“Why are you tracking a member of my family? I know that Octavia didn’t hurt any human, so why did you try to kill her?”

The hunter’s eyes widened in surprise at the word “family”. How could a vampire refer to a werewolf as family? The two species were known to be in conflict more often than not.

“I asked you a question!” the blonde growled, shaking the woman she was still holding up. “Why did you go after Octavia?”

“I—I heard of humans being mysteriously killed around here,” the dirty-blonde woman said, her voice raspy with the pressure on her throat. “I patrolled the streets for a few days, and tonight I finally spotted her, a werewolf.”

“So you just assumed that she was the one responsible?”

“She is a wolf. If she isn’t the one behind the most recent attacks, then she is responsible for others. Or maybe it was you? That’s what you all do right, prey on humans?” the hunter replied, anger in her voice.

“I tried to tell you,” the young wolf said, coming closer. “I am not the one you want. Neither is Clarke. We don’t hurt humans.”

The hunter rolled her eyes in distrust. She tried to grab another knife from her belt, but the blonde vampire squeezed her throat a little harder.

“Don’t,” she told the woman with a warning look. “As Octavia said, we do not normally hurt humans. But in the case of a stubborn hunter, I am more than willing to make an exception.”

The vampire brought her hand to the woman’s jacket and opened it a little more, the hunter medallion that rested above her cleavage showing under the moonlight. The piece of jewelry was all silver and sported the image of a tree in full bloom, roots and all.

“What family are you from? There are not many of your kinds left these days, but your crest is foreign to me,” she asked.

“Woods,” the dirty-haired woman replied. If she was going to die here tonight, she wanted the vampire to remember that there were still some Woods in the world, and that her death would be avenged one day.

The vampire brought the woman’s face closer to her own, her other hand grabbing the back of her neck as she was ready to snap it. Before she could, though, a panicked voice echoed through the dark alley.

“Anya!”

The vampire turned her face to the mysterious apparition. It was a teenage girl, 15 or 16 years old, with wavy brown hair, a lean figure, and the most beautiful and intense green eyes she had ever seen.

“Lexa—” she heard the hunter breathe out, a note of fear in her voice. “Run!”

“What are you doing to her? Please, don’t hurt her. She is all I have,” the teenager pleaded with Clarke, her eyes full of tears and her voice quivering.

The vampire sighed. This night was not going like she had planned, not at all. She had wanted to catch a night show at the theater, and here she was instead, dealing with hunters and terrorizing young girls. What a mess. She wanted to tell the teenager to forget what she had seen and flee, but before she could, she noticed a similar silver medallion around the brunette’s neck. Another hunter, just her luck.

The other blonde must have followed her eyes, because she suddenly started to beg.

“No! Please, don’t touch her. She is my sister. She is innocent, she hasn’t even begun her training yet.”

The vampire shook her head slightly, regrets already pooling in her stomach.

“I am sorry, but I cannot let her leave and try to avenge you in a few years. Besides, she will be a hunter one day, and she will come after my kind. It is in her nature, right? Why should I spare her when you were willing to kill Octavia simply for being a wolf?”

“O,” she continued, “hold her please.”

The vampire released her grab around the hunter’s neck, and dropped her in front of the young wolf. The girl might be almost a foot shorter than her, and look much lighter, but when she grabbed the dirty-blond haired woman’s arm and twisted it behind her back, a hand at the scruff of her neck, the hunter knew that she wouldn’t be able to escape.

The blonde vampire glided to the teenage brunette in an instant, like she had apparated in front of her rather than moved the 20 feet that had separated them.

The girl, Lexa, was still completely immobile, shocked by the events she was witnessing. Recently, she had noticed her older sister going out at night more and more, and this time, she had followed her. Despite her natural physical abilities, she had had a hard time following the blonde, and she had lost sight of her more than once. But her tenacity had paid off, and she had spotted her sister jump from a building onto an alley, a couple of minutes before finding her in this dire situation. She had always thought that vampires and such were just stories for children and silly teenagers in need of excitement. But there she was, in a dark alleyway, about to become the beautiful blonde’s midnight snack. She could feel her heart rate spike, and a drop of sweat rolled all the way down her back.

“Do not be afraid,” the vampire told her gently, looking straight into her eyes. The brunette noticed that they were not red anymore, but had reverted to a deep blue instead. “It won’t hurt for more than a second, I promise.”

The girl stared right at the vampire, emerald eyes piercing into the sapphire ones. She wanted to scream, to run, to fight back, but her body wasn’t responding anymore. All she could do was stand there, immobile, feeling selfishly grateful that, at least, she wouldn’t have to see another member of her family die.

“Close your eyes, beautiful,” the blonde whispered to her. “You are OK. You are safe.”

Seeing that the girl had obeyed her, Clarke took a step forward, invading the brunette’s space. Her left hand grabbed the side of her neck lightly, while the right one pushed the brown hair aside, revealing a soft white neck. She could feel the blood running under the girl’s skin, and her fangs ached impatiently. Inching her face closer, she nuzzled the warm skin there, breathing in the smell that reminded her of the woods during a rainy day. The teenager’s smell was so appealing, Clarke couldn’t help but try to commit it to memory. Finally, wanting to shorten the Woods women's suffering, she moved her head back slightly, and dove in fangs first, piercing the carotid.

As soon as the blood reached her mouth, the blonde vampire felt an explosion of emotions. It was so powerful that she nearly lost her footing, something that hadn’t happened to her in centuries. Images of the young brunette filled her mind; her first steps, her parents smiling at her, a girl a few years older with high cheekbones tickling her — Anya? — her crush on one of the neighboring girls, school. The vampire felt like watching a movie in very fast motion, but she could feel the brunette’s emotions echoing in her chest. It couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, but they had been the most intense of the woman’s life, and she had witnessed the D-Day, Marie Antoinette’s demise, and the fall of Constantinople. Removing her fangs from the bloody neck, the shock hit her at full force. This young brunette was her soulmate. _Egad_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the change of ratings

The teenager was lying in her arms, unconscious, and Clarke could hear her heart rate rapidly slowing from the exsanguination. Not wasting another second, the vampire punctured her own wrist, dark blood dripping from the two small holes. Holding the young brunette firmly against her with one arm, she gently nudged the pouty lips opened, and forced her to swallow a few drops.

“Hmm, Clarke? What are you doing?” Octavia questioned her, surprised at the turn of events. “Did you decide to turn her instead?”

“No!” the hunter shouted, her features contorted in a grimace of pain and anger. “You can’t do that to her!”

“We cannot stay here,” the vampire replied, ignoring the interruption. “Let us return home.”

She took the unconscious brunette in her arms, bridal style, and stared impassively at the dirty-blond haired woman, still tightly held by Octavia.

“You can come with us, or choose to return to your home. But I am bringing her with me. What is your decision?”

“Like I’m gonna go home and let you take my sister away,” the woman scoffed.

“Very well. Try not to slow us down.”

Octavia released the hunter’s arm carefully, before moving to stand beside her friend. Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to win a fight against both creatures, Anya sighed, and fell into their footsteps. It was a curious experience to move through the streets of Polis with them. They had a way of staying close to the shadows and avoiding the crowds. Not that Polis was particularly crowded on a normal Thursday at 2 AM, but still, the hunter wondered how they could carry an unconscious young girl in their arms without raising any type of suspicion.

Clarke could feel her irritation grow. With her soulmate so vulnerable, her protectiveness was heightened. She would not be able to relax until they were both safely resting in her sanctuary, surrounded by her family. Walking as fast as she dared without the risk of losing the hunter, she looked at the young woman in her arms. She was breathing regularly, her cheeks less pale than earlier. Her head, chestnut locks partly covering the face, was resting between the vampire’s left shoulder and the crook of her neck. The beautiful green eyes were closed, immobile, but the blonde could still picture their particular shade, somewhere between an emerald and a luxuriant forest under the summery sun. Her hands sat on her stomach, elegant long fingers loosely holding her black T-shirt. The symmetry of her features and the remarkable proportions she could guess under the clothing were calling to the artistic side of the vampire. She hadn’t painted much in the last century or so, busy as she had been with her quest. And yet, as she was staring at the pretty face, retaining a little of its juvenile roundness but hinting at the otherworldly beauty she would one day come to be, Clarke knew she would have to immortalize it on a canvas, or a hundred.

After striding the streets for almost 10 minutes, they arrived in front of an empty-looking building. The vampire walked directly through the front door, pushing against the magical barrier, gift of an old witchy friend. She turned around to nod reassuringly at the hunter.

“You can come in, it is safe.”

The woman closed her gaping mouth and resolutely entered the building, working through the illusion. Once inside, she did a better job at hiding her surprise, but couldn’t stop her eyes from wandering. The entrance was lit with several electrical chandeliers, and much larger than she had anticipated. The walls, all white, were displaying various paintings in a similar style. The dark carpet, silencing her steps, led into a grand and modern living room decorated with a fireplace where a few people looked at them curiously.

“Clarke, Octavia, welcome,” a tall man with dark curly hair greeted them. “Were you able to find the feral wolf?”

Clarke nodded at her trusted second before kneeling, carefully placing her precious cargo onto the leather couch and covering her with the blanket that hung on a side.

“Greetings Bellamy. Sadly no. The wolf is still running about, and we encountered some unexpected complications,” she replied, pointing at the almond-eyed woman still standing near the door, defensively looking at them all.

Her companions, who had respectfully ignored the intrusion until then, trusting her to have a good reason for allowing a stranger into their home, turned towards the blonde hunter.

“This is Anya of the Woods family. She mistakenly thought Octavia was responsible for the attacks and confronted her. And this,” she continued, pointing at the sleeping girl whose cheek she had been caressing with a finger, “is Lexa, her sister.”

“Hunters?! What the hell boss? Why did you bring them to our secret lair?” the woman sitting on the left exclaimed, looking at the vampire in surprise.

Clarke rolled her eyes at her dark-haired friend’s word choices. The woman had been obsessed with television for the last 20 years, under the pretense of “catching up with the modern lingo.” The blonde was convinced that she was making some of the terms and expressions up simply to annoy her. And who in God’s name was uncle Bob?

The vampire stood, commanding the attention of the room. “Lexa is my soulmate.”

For a few long seconds, all around her kept mum. Bellamy was gazing at her wide-eyed, Monty had dropped his teacup in surprise. “Don’t sell me a dog,” the dark-haired woman blurted.

“It is the truth, Raven. There can be no doubt. I bit her earlier, the connection was instantaneous.”

“You bit her? Well, that’s one way to make an impression on a girl,” Raven teasingly replied.

“Wait!” the hunter interrupted, finally trusting her voice enough to speak. “Soulmate? How’s that even possible? You’re a vampire. I thought only some werewolves had soulmates.”

“Well, my dear, it is possible because, contrary to what you think, I am not a vampire. Not completely at least,” the blonde replied with a smirk.

Backing away from the couch, she slowly cracked her neck on both sides. Her hair became shorter, as if it was growing inward back into her scalp. Her eyes, a hue now closer to electric blue than sapphire, sported oblong pupils. The bones of her jaw unhinged, her nose turned into a snout, and her canines lengthened until they protruded from her chops. Her head appeared covered in a soft blond fur; a shade darker than the woman’s hair had been.

“What—what are you?” the hunter asked, puzzled.

The beast turned to face her fully, the woman’s body unchanged but now dominated by the head of a wolf, and growled, “A hybrid.”

The almond-eyed woman, her mouth still open, looked slowly at the other occupants of the room. When she had spotted the girl on the street, Octavia, her instincts had identified her as a werewolf. The way she moved, her nose up in the air, sniffing, like an animal on the hunt. But now that she could see her up close, she noticed subtle differences. It was as if she had only looked at one half of a painting, obsessed by its colors and texture, before suddenly realizing that the other half had been there all along, similar and yet different. Observing all of them more closely, she was lost in thoughts when the dark-haired woman, Raven, began to speak.

“Yes, _guapa_. We’re all hybrids here.”

“But—how is that possible?” the hunter replied, confusion still evident on her face.

“That, my dear, is a story for another day,” the blonde hybrid replied, her face back to normal. “All you need to know is that your sister, and you, by extension, have nothing to fear from us. She is under our protection now.”

“Why should I believe you? Hybrids, vampires, it’s all the same. We are hunters, how can I trust that you won’t kill us both at the first chance you get? You, maybe,” Anya scoffed, pointing at the blonde, “but how about your friends? They have no reason to want to keep us alive.”

“If we wanted you dead, you would already be dead,” Octavia pointed out. “I could easily have killed you back in that alley, and Clarke had both yours and your sister’s life in her hands tonight. Yet you still breathe. Maybe we are not the ones that shouldn’t be trusted.”

“If your sister is Clarke’s soulmate, then we will protect her with our lives,” the tall man, Bellamy, declared. “We are a pack; we protect our own and their loved ones. Besides, Clarke is our sire. We would never do anything that goes against her will.”

The blonde hybrid huffed at her second’s words. Although it was technically true that she had sired all of them and could command them if she wished so, she had never taken advantage of their link to her. She treated all of them like family, and after centuries together, they were more than so.

“Fine,” the hunter huffed, “let’s say it’s true, and my sister is your soulmate. She is only 16! She’s still a child. She’s too young to make that kind of decision, and I’m not going to let you anyway near her.”

“You seem to forget your place, hunter,” the blonde hybrid growled. “You cannot stop me. I let you live because you are her family, but I would advise you not to test my patience.” To her credit, the tall blonde paled but didn’t tremble at the sound that had made bigger, older men cower in fear.

“That been said,” Clarke continued after a moment, calmer, “I have no intention of turning her yet. She is indeed still a child, and I do not wish to rob her of the normal human experiences of her age, such as graduating and going to university.”

Anya’s tense shoulders relaxed at the blonde’s statement; the relief palpable on her face. “And what am I supposed to tell her, in the meantime? She saw your abilities and your fangs. Are you going to compel her to make her forget?”

“I suppose you were planning on telling her about the supernatural world at some point, correct?” The blonde hunter nodded in response. “Then you can simply tell her the truth,” Clarke continued, “about our world, your family, your history, etc. I would prefer if you didn’t mention our soulmate link to her yet, as it might be a lot to accept at once. But you can say that we came to an agreement, and that we decided to let you both live upon the condition that you would never attack a member of my pack again.”

Clarke kneeled in front of the sleeping brunette once again. The teenager was resting peacefully now, her heart rate back to a normal rhythm and her cheeks a healthy pink. She would probably wake up soon, and it might be best if she didn’t do so on a stranger’s couch, surrounded by people who had tried to kill her less than an hour before. The blonde sighed at the thought of being separated from her soulmate, but she knew that it was the right thing to do for now. She had waited an eternity for the girl, she could exert a little more patience. After caressing the chestnut hair one last time she stood up, the young woman cradled in her arms.

“We will accompany you back to your home. It might be less of a shock if she wakes up in her own bed.”

“So,” the hunter spoke again, suspiciously looking at her, “I have your word, you won’t hurt us again or try to turn her?”

“I pledge to protect her and not turn her until she is ready to make the choice herself,” Clarke replied, staring at the taller blonde. “My pack and I will stay close to ensure no harm comes to her, but as long as she is not in danger, we will not interfere with her life.”

“And how about me? Am I supposed to be your pet hunter now?”

“We will extend this protection to you. As we mentioned earlier, my pack does not hurt humans. For centuries, we have ensured that the existence of the supernatural world would remain a secret by tracking the feral wolves and rogue vampires that could expose us. If you wish to pursue your mission, you are free to hunt those threats, with or without us.”

All the events of the night were swirling in Anya’s head. The tracking that had lasted hours all around the city; the fear of death when the blonde had caught her; the tearing of her heart at the sight of her younger sister in the deadly embrace of the vampire; the confusion that had followed; the shock when she had heard about the soulmate link and the truth about the people standing in front of her. It was all too much, and she needed time to process all these emotions. The hybrid seemed to understand, as she didn’t wait for an answer, and simply exited the room, Bellamy and Raven in tow.

Anya quietly led them through the empty streets, barely registering the three hybrids’ presence as she was still lost in thoughts. Once they arrived in front of the small house that they had called home for the past six years, she unlocked the door, and entered. Turning to face her companions, she waited to see what they would do.

The blonde looked at her with a smirk, and crossed the threshold, her precious cargo still safely curled in her arms.

“We don’t need to be invited in, just so you know,” Raven told her before entering as well and leaning against a wall. “It makes it so much easier to visit pretty girls.”

The hunter silently shook her head, not wanting to rise to the dark-haired hybrid’s bait, and followed Clarke upstairs to show her where Lexa’s room was.

The blonde gently placed the girl onto her bed before removing her sneakers. Ignoring the woman’s watchful presence behind her, she tucked a strand of brown hair behind a tiny ear, and kissed the teenager’s forehead lightly.

“Rest well, _meine Geliebte_. I will see you again soon, I promise.”

Without saying a word, Anya stepped aside to let the hybrid exit her sister’s room. Of all the things she had discovered that night, the fact that her younger sister, a member of the Woods family, was supposedly meant to become a supernatural creature and mate with the powerful blonde was the hardest to get her head around.

Not looking forward to the conversation she would have to have with Lexa in the morning, the hunter locked the door behind the three hybrids, and went to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guapa (Spanish) = pretty/beautiful (for a girl)
> 
> meine Geliebte (German) = my love


	3. Chapter 3

The following morning, the young brunette stirred in bed, the sunlight normally blocked by the blinds hitting her face. Confused by her unusual predicament, the girl opened an eye, groaning at the unfairness of life. She rolled over and covered her face with a pillow, but the damage was already done. Her brain had felt the pressure in her bladder, and she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep without relieving herself first. Groggy, she pushed her blanket to the side and stuck a leg out of bed when she noticed another unusual thing. Instead of her typical sleepwear — a pair of shorts and a tank top — she was fully dressed. The black T-shirt she was clad in wasn’t necessarily a surprise, but there was no way she had gone to bed wearing a bra, baggy jeans, and socks.

She strode to the bathroom and, after answering nature’s call, confusedly stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her chestnut hair was tousled, and her face looked like it did any other morning. Frowning, she ran a hand on her unblemished neck, trying to remember why she was feeling so out of it that morning. When she reached a particular spot, midway between her jaw and her collarbone, memories came rushing back and hit her like a freight train. She could see herself following Anya down the streets the previous night, and finding her been lifted off the ground by a woman. She shook her head at the memory of the blonde moving in front of her in a blink — how was that possible? She could still picture the beautiful woman’s face. She had seemed to be in her early 20s, with a round visage, a beauty mark above the lips, the bluest eyes she had ever seen, and fangs — wait, fangs?

Lexa splashed water at her face before holding the sides of her head with both hands. What was happening to her? Was she going crazy? Had she sleepwalked and got dressed? The last thing she seemed to remember was the blonde whispering to her as if not to scare her, sharp pain in her neck, and then nothing. Had it all been just a dream? But if not, who was that woman, and how had she made it back to her bed?

Hearing some noises coming from the kitchen, she walked down the stairs and towards the kitchen, half-expecting her sister to boast a shark head or a pair of wings. To her relief, Anya appeared to be her usual self, albeit the dark rings under her eyes.

“Morning, Squid,” the blonde greeted her with false enthusiasm, “did you sleep well?”

“Hmm,” replied Lexa, “I feel rested, but I had the weirdest dream.”

“Ah,” her sister answered, her shoulders sagging. “Why don’t you set the table, and then you can tell me about it? I’m almost done with the scrambled eggs.”

Lexa shrugged before grabbing the placemats, plates, and cutlery from the kitchen and setting them onto the small table in the living room. The two sisters had lived alone for years, and since they didn’t really entertain much, they had never bothered buying more than the two chairs that were already there. They had inherited the house, as well as other properties, from their parents. Anya, who had turned 18 a few weeks before their deaths, had fought tooth and nail to be appointed as Lexa’s legal guardian. Thanks to the large sum their parents had left them, and what they earned each month by renting out the other houses, money wasn’t an issue. Anya had taken over the gym their father had started, and when Lexa was in school, she could be found there, training or teaching martial arts.

“So—,” the older woman started, putting the bacon and the eggs on each plate before sitting down, “tell me about your dream.”

“It wasn’t a dream, was it?” Encouraged by her sister’s nod, Lexa continued. “I saw you comb the streets, as if you were hunting for something, or someone. And then there were two women, two strangers, freakishly strong. And one of them bit me,” she finished in a whisper.

“Lex, I—,” her sister sighed, not sure where to start. “I’m sorry I put you in danger. I would never have carried on if I had known you were following me. There are many things I need to tell you, about us, our family, and the strangers from last night. I was planning on explaining them to you after you finished high school, I didn’t want you involved in all of that, not yet.”

“Do you remember the stories Mom and Dad used to tell us when we were kids?” she continued. “The ones about the creatures of the night, the monsters hiding in the shadows, and the hunters that tracked them down?”

“Yeah, vaguely. I thought they were creepy stories, I remember my friend Callie in elementary school saying that their fairy tales were weird.”

“That’s because they weren’t fairy tales. They were warnings, and sometimes they were part of our history, things that happened to our ancestors.”

“OK...” the teenager replied, unconvinced. “So that makes you what, a hunter? And what about the two women from last night? They were vampires?”

“Yes and no. I am a hunter, like most people in our family have been for generations. When I spotted the petite brunette, I thought she was a werewolf. And the blonde had fangs like a vampire. But they are apparently something else, they called themselves hybrids.”

“This is so crazy. Like, my instincts tell me that you are just messing with my head, but then I have these images, memories from last night, and I woke up all dressed, so I _know_ that it has to be true, at least part of it.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling, Squid. I didn’t believe it at first either, it took me a while to get my head around the idea that supernatural creatures exist, and that it’s our duty to kill them.”

“How long have you been a hunter? And why didn’t you tell me about it?”

The blonde sighed. She had been expecting that question, but it was going to open a whole different can of worms. “For the last six years. I’ve had some help training and studying this world. And I didn’t tell you about it because you were so young when I found out, and I wanted you to have a normal life, for as long as possible.”

“Six years,” the brunette repeated. The timing was too weird to be a coincidence. “So, after Mom and Dad died, right?” The blonde could only nod, knowing where this was going to go but incapable of stopping it. “It wasn’t an animal attack, was it?” her little sister murmured.

“No,” Anya whispered, the memories of that fateful night flashing in front of her eyes. Images she had tried to forget with all her might, all while knowing that she never would, for as long as she lived. “It was a werewolf. When I got home that day, after I—after I found them, I saw the tracks. They were paws, like a wolf, but suddenly they turned into footprints. That’s how I found out. Then someone explained it all to me.”

“Who? Another hunter?”

“Yes. It doesn’t matter right now. I still have many things to explain to you, and I promise I will. But you are going to be late for practice, and I have to open the gym soon. Just—try to go on with your day, OK?”

Lexa shrugged and washed her plate before returning to her room. The 16-year-old had been so excited to find out that her soccer club was staying open during the summer, and she had been looking forward to training every morning. But now, it seemed so inconsequential, in the face of what she had just learned. Werewolves and vampires were a real thing, not the figment of some writers’ imagination. At least one of them had been responsible for her parents’ death. Her parents who, based on what she had heard minutes ago, had been hunters. As was her sister. Oh, and they had both almost been killed the night before. Yellow card anyone?

After changing into her soccer uniform, a pair of red shorts and a white T-shirt, she grabbed the backpack containing clean clothes, her cleats, and towel and ran back downstairs. Her hand was on the front doorknob when she turned around and asked her sister in a small voice, “Are you gonna be safe? The people from last night, they won’t come after us, will they?”

“No, Lex,” her sister responded, looking her straight in the eye. “You and I are safe, I promise. We have come to an understanding. As long as I don’t attack them, they won’t harm us either.”

Lexa nodded once before exiting the house. She would have to run to the field if she wanted to arrive on time. Tightening her backpack straps, she started jogging down the street, not noticing the shadow that followed her at a distance.

The practice was gruesome that day. Lexa, distracted by all the new information swirling in her head, couldn’t focus for more than a few minutes. She missed several passes, scored only once, and got almost knocked-out when she didn’t pay attention to the ball her teammate had sent flying towards her. Coach Ryder, annoyed at the pitiful display of one of his star players, made her run suicide drills until she fell on the ground, exhausted, and threatened to bench her for their next game if she didn’t pull herself together.

She dragged her painful carcass under the shower at the end of practice, her head hung in shame at her poor performance. Her teammates mercifully let it go once she blamed it on her supposed heavy period and stomach cramps and promised that she would do better the next day. After a long warm shower, she could stand once more without feeling her legs wobble under her. She dried herself, put on some clean shorts and a gray T-shirt, and left the locker room. Almost all the other girls had already left, so she said goodbye to coach Ryder and ambled down the street leading to her house alone.

Though she had spent the first 10 years of her life near D.C., Lexa would choose Polis over it any day of the week. The middle-sized town functioned at a more leisurely pace that suited the quiet teenager. No blaring sirens to wake you up in the middle of the night, no smelly and packed subway that would make a sardine feel claustrophobic. She could go everywhere by riding her bike or the bus, and her school had a homey feeling about it. She had known almost all her classmates since junior high, and despite her reserved nature, she was looking forward to spending the next two years with them. But what she enjoyed about all else was the forest that bordered over half of the city, the same forest that she was currently walking along. The inhabitants tended to stay clear of it, as animals could often be spotted roaming among the trees, but the brunette had felt drawn to it ever since she and her sister had moved to Polis. Though she had never ventured too far in, Anya had found her more than once sitting on top of a branch, her nose in a book.

Lost in thoughts, Lexa was halfway between the field and her house when she felt eyes on her. Looking over her shoulder, she noticed that the street was deserted, and yet she couldn’t shake the impression that someone was staring at her. It might have been a residual effect of the recent revelations, but she hastened her steps.

She was beginning to wonder how weird it would seem for her to start running when the sound of a branch snapping made her jerk her head. Near the edge of the forest, a doe was looking at her. The poor animal had probably encountered a predator or a particularly mean bush, as the teenager could see some blood running down its neck. They exchanged glances before the doe turned around and moved away on unsteady legs. Without thinking, Lexa followed it deeper into the forest, hoping the injury wasn’t too severe.

The brunette followed the animal’s trail for around 20 minutes, but its injury had to have been shallower than it appeared, because she didn’t manage to catch up with it. She would have felt relieved at the thought if she hadn’t realized that she had gotten lost. The forest had never seemed menacing to the girl, with its beautiful tall trees and the lush vegetation. Now, however, the canopy was thick enough to block most of the early afternoon sunlight and the sounds of the city, and Lexa couldn’t remember for sure which direction she had come from. After walking for another hour, she found herself even deeper into the forest, with no idea how to go home. She had tried to call Anya, but the signal was too low to do anything.

The girl didn’t think the situation could get any worse when, all of the sudden, she heard the thunder rumble at a distance and it started to pour. She had to find shelter quickly if she didn’t want to end up drenched and catch pneumonia. Lexa was running around, cursing herself for following an animal into the woods without leaving a trail of her own, when she noticed a rocky formation between trees, near a small clearing. The top boulders were pressed against each other in such a way that a small cave was visible between them. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it would protect her from the rain. The teenager crawled inside, careful not to scrape her palms and knees, and lay down on the cold flat stone.

Lexa was on her side, face to the entrance, shivering from the cold and her wet clothes. She was rubbing her right arm with her hand in a vain attempt to warm herself up when she heard a whine. Outside the cave, the most beautiful wolf she had ever seen slowly approached. Its fur, darkened by the rain, was a mix of sandy orange and white, with darker ears and a patch of white running on both sides of the snout. Its electric blue eyes stared at the girl the whole time it took the animal to crawl under the rocks. Lexa had backed away at the intrusion, but her body was now resting against a boulder, the wolf lying between her and the exit. She was trapped.

The canid didn’t seem to want to make her its dinner, though. Its head was cocked, the bright eyes looking at her with what she would describe as concern. When it emitted another whine and put a paw on her arm as if to say 'Don’t worry, I got you,' she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

“You aren’t going to hurt me, are you?” The wolf whimpered at the question, and inched its body along the girl’s shivering form. Despite its wet outer coat, Lexa could feel the heat radiating from the animal. After a short hesitation, she curled up against the warm and gentle predator, and let sleep claim her.

Wolf Clarke


	4. Chapter 4

The next time the brunette opened her eyes, her watch indicated five in the afternoon. Anya should be home already, and she was certainly wondering where Lexa had gone. The rain had stopped at some point during her nap, but the wolf had let her sleep. The animal hadn’t moved at all, content to keep the girl warm. Its head was resting on its forelegs, blue orbs staring at the girl’s face. It took the teenager longer than she would care to admit noticing the vibration under her palm. Raising an eyebrow, she looked at her hand lost in the blond fur and applied more pressure. The sound increased in response, making her smile.

“You can purr? That’s so adorable,” she exclaimed, delighted at her discovery.

The wolf growled at the comment, doing what could only qualify as an eye roll, before playfully nudging the brunette’s head with its wet snout.

“OK, OK, I get it, you are a terrifying creature, not an oversized kitten,” the girl replied with a laugh, her arms trying without much success to push back the furry head. “It’s getting late, I have to go home before my sister organizes a search party.”

The wolf whined, a sad gleam in its intelligent eyes, before crawling out of the cave, the girl in tow. Lexa had wondered how she would make it back, but the canid seemed to know the way, as it began walking among the trees without hesitation. She hadn’t previously noticed its massive body, since the animal had been crawling and lying down, but now that they were both standing outside, she realized that the wolf was the size of a pony, with its head reaching her shoulder.

The journey home took longer than Lexa would have liked. Between her exhausting soccer practice in the morning, the rocks and broken branches she had to step over, and the mud covering her sneakers, making them slippery, she could feel her legs begin to shake. The wolf seemed to take pity on her, and after stopping her from falling on her face once again, it stood sideways in front of her, its head looking at her over its shoulder.

“You want me to climb on your back?” the girl wondered. When the beast nodded once, she took it as approval, and, careful not to pull the fur with her hands, she swung her right leg above its body and slowly sat.

A year or two before losing her parents, the family had gone to a fair one summer with uncle Gustus and aunt Indra. Lexa couldn’t remember much about that day, but she hadn’t forgotten the feeling of riding a horse. She had spent maybe 20 minutes on the saddle, her hands holding the reins tightly, her back straight and her head held with pride. She had begged her parents later on to buy her a pony, and they had chuckled and called her “their little warrior”. Sitting below the wolf’s shoulders, a hand grabbing the fur of its neck, she wiped the tear that escaped at the happy family memory, one of the clearest mental pictures she had of the four of them together. She had long since forgotten their voices and the sound of their laughter, but the smile on their faces was inked in her mind.

When they got closer to the edge of the forest, Lexa heard her sister calling her name, and shouted back. Anya ran to them, and stopped dead in her tracks when she spotted her younger sibling sitting on top of the huge blonde wolf.

“Le—Lex? What the hell happened to you? You weren’t home when I arrived, you didn’t answer your phone. I got so worried!”

“I’m sorry An,” the girl replied, dismounting the animal with her head down in embarrassment. “I saw an injured deer and I tried to help it, but it was too fast, and by the time I realized it was pointless, I was already lost. And then it started pouring, so I hid in a cave.”

“I swear, just this morning I told you that werewolves and vamps are a real thing, and you still thought it was a good idea to go hang in the woods by yourself? You’re lucky Fido here is on our side.”

The wolf, offended at the name, growled in reply. She might have sworn not to hurt them, but no one could mock her without facing dire consequences. Although the threat lost some credibility when the brunette scratched behind her ears as a peace offering and the growl turned into a purr of its own accord. She had known the teenager for less than a day and she was already wrapped around her little finger, this was bad, very bad, _Mist_!

“Thanks for bringing me home. And for keeping me warm,” the brunette told her, her hand still lost in the soft fur of the neck. “I don’t even know your name.”

The wolf stared at the blonde hunter; its head cooked to the side in a plea for help. After a sigh, the woman complied. “Clarke. Her name is Clarke.”

“Clarke,” the teenager repeated, testing the name on her tongue. “Thank you, Clarke.”

Relieved to see her soulmate back to safety, Clarke rubbed her head against Lexa’s shoulder for a few seconds before giving her a nudge towards her sister.

“Fine, fine, I’m going. Thank you again for rescuing me. Guess I’ll see you around, Clarke?”

And with that, the brunette followed her older sibling back to their house, still feeling the warmth of the wolf’s body on her skin.

*****

The rest of the summer went similarly for Lexa. In the morning, she would attend soccer practice, often oblivious to the shadows that followed her all the way to the field and back. Now that she wasn’t worried about supernatural creatures attacking her all of the sudden, she could focus on the ball, and coach Ryder was delighted to have one of his best players back. After practice, she would return home to drop her bag and eat lunch, and then she would more often than not enter the woods.

She spent many afternoons exploring them in Clarke’s company. Where she had never dared to venture too far on her own, the wolf proved to be an invaluable guide. She brought her to hidden waterfalls and ponds, showed her the most amazing trees and scenery, and even managed a few times to bring her close enough to deer that she could take pictures on her phone to show to Anya later. Her sister didn’t express much enthusiasm at the prospect of Lexa spending time in the woods with a werewolf, but she was forced to admit that no other animal would dare to attack her while they were together. The teenager thought it would be best not to mention that other werewolves sometimes joined them — she didn’t want her sister to get white hair before her time after all.

She met various members of Clarke’s pack over the weeks, though she noticed that two of them tended to spend more time with her than the others. The first one was a very large black wolf, his kind deep brown eyes following her around when she was exploring, as if he was looking after a toddler. He reminded Lexa of a teddy bear. The second one was a much leaner female wolf, her fur a mix of black, white, and brown, that always seemed to smirk at the teenager.

Lexa wished she could know their names, but the werewolves had so far refused to turn into humans and speak to her. She had been unsettled by it at first, but with the passing of the weeks, she had come to appreciate the silence, and the way the animals interacted with her. To her surprise, Clarke didn’t seem to mind carrying the brunette on her back in front of her pack, and she regularly offered her rides. Lexa tried to refuse at first, embarrassed, but once they started to go deeper and deeper into the forest, her legs thanked her for the concession.

Her favorite memory of that particular summer would remain the first time Clarke brought her to a waterfall. They left early in the afternoon, just the two of them, and Clarke almost immediately offered her a ride. Once the teenager was comfortably sitting behind the wolf’s shoulders, the latter took off, mindful not to lose her precious cargo. It had taken Lexa some time to get used to the feeling, riding a wolf was not quite like riding a horse as it turned out, but once she figured out how to move as one with the beast, it became an incredible experience. After an hour, they reached a 15-foot-high waterfall in the middle of a small clearing. A family of boars was drinking at the pond, and left when they spotted the girl and her four-legged companion. The brunette would have been happy to lounge by the pond and take some photos, but the wolf had other ideas. After yapping at her to get her attention, Clarke climbed to the top of the waterfall, ran to the edge, and jumped into the cold water, splattering the poor bystander. The girl wanted to complain, but at the sight of the blonde predator, her fur all wet, looking at her with her tongue hanging comically, she burst into laughter. Being a good sport, she removed her pants and T-shirt before jumping from the top of the waterfall too. She learned two things that day. Firstly, despite the summery sun, the water was cold in the forest. Secondly, a werewolf could blush.

*****

The school break was now coming to an end, and Lexa was both excited to resume her classes, and sad to know that she wouldn’t be able to spend as much time with Clarke as she wanted. On the last day of the summer holidays, while Anya was working at the gym, she let the wolf into her house. They spent the afternoon curled up on the couch watching movies. Not sure what movies Clarke was into, Lexa opted for Harry Potter — you can never go wrong with Emma Watson and some magic. They were in the middle of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban when Anya came home. If she was surprised to find the giant wolf in her living room, she didn’t let on. She did, however, mention that she hoped the couch was still flea-free, making Clarke huff in displeasure.

“Can you stay around?” Lexa whispered into the wolf’s ear when her sister told her it was time for her furry friend to leave and for them to have dinner. “I’ll let you in later.”

Clarke cocked her head in surprise, before nodding once. She retreated to the woods, dining on a couple of rabbits, before sitting patiently in sight of the house’s back door. As promised, the brunette let her back inside the house a few hours later. Lexa, not wanting to alert her sister, was moving around by candlelight. The wolf could only admire the shadows dancing on the girl’s face with the flickers of the flame, itching once again to paint her.

She knew that she shouldn’t be spending so much time with her soulmate. She was not only taking the risk of her enemies finding about the Woods sisters, it was also becoming more and more arduous not to turn into a human and engage in a proper conversation. But Clarke was painfully aware of the tug in her chest. If she started talking to the girl, it wouldn’t be long before she kissed her and told her the truth about their connection. So, for now, being in her wolf form was the easiest way to spend time by the girl’s side without breaking her vow to let Lexa live a few more years as a normal human.

The blonde wolf followed the girl to her room. Moving her large body up the stairs without making any of the steps crack had been an interesting challenge. Once safely inside the teenager’s sanctuary, she let her eyes roam. The room was neat and mostly bare, except for the queen bed, a wardrobe, a large desk with a computer atop, a shelf with some soccer trophies, and a large bookshelf. Not wanting to presume anything, Clarke lay down on the carpet, ready to guard the brunette.

“You—you can lie here, if you want,” the teenager stuttered, her cheeks turning pink. “My bed is big enough for the two of us, and it will be more comfortable.”

The blonde would have argued that she often slept on the forest ground, and that this floor was more than adequate, but seeing the girl so vulnerable, she smiled before climbing onto the bed. The mattress dipped under her weight, but the frame held. She lay on her stomach, her head resting on her forelegs, her position mirroring the one she had taken in the cave. After a few minutes, she felt the teenager inch next to her, until her left side was touching the wolf’s body. A hand started caressing her fur, from the back of the neck to the middle of her back, careful not to apply too much pressure. Clarke didn’t realize she had started to purr until she heard the girl chuckle and felt her curl up against her side.

She didn’t mean to fall asleep, of course. She had intended to watch over her soulmate until dawn, and then to escape the house before the blonde hunter would wake. Alas, Clarke was embarrassed to admit that things hadn’t quite gone according to plan. The regular breathing of the teenager and the warm weight against her body had lulled her to sleep, and she had rested better than she had in decades. Still, the look of panic on Lexa’s face when they both woke up at the sound of “Lex, are you up? Breakfast time!” almost made her regret spending the night. While the brunette distracted her sister downstairs, Clarke managed to jump through the open window and discreetly land into the backyard before entering the forest, grateful that her packmates weren’t around to see that. If Raven were to hear how she had hidden in the bedroom and escaped through the window like a common paramour, she would never live it down. 

Wolf Lincoln

Wolf Octavia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mist (Ger.) = shit, damnit
> 
> Clarke and Lexa will have more vocal interactions in the future, I promise, but I'm having a lot of fun writing Wolf Clarke for now!


	5. Chapter 5

After being almost caught in bed with a wolf — girl? —Lexa couldn’t bear to look at her sister in the eyes that morning, which made for a slightly awkward breakfast. She was grateful when Anya put an end to her internal torture and headed for the gym, after a peck to the top of her head and a “Have a nice day, Squid! Don’t be late for school.”

The brunette rushed to eat her breakfast, wash the dishes, and finish getting ready. Not wanting to stand out too much on the first day of her junior year, she opted for skinny black jeans and a green sweater. She had planned on braiding her hair, but seeing that she was running a little late, she quickly tied it in a loose ponytail and exited the house. On her way to school, she smiled at the thought of riding Clarke to school instead of her blue bike. The giant blonde wolf would have made quite the impression on her classmates!

Lexa was happy to be back in class. She hadn’t seen her friends much during the summer, busy as she had been with soccer practice and her afternoons with Clarke, and she was looking forward to catching up with them. Overall, her first day went smoothly; she already knew most of her teachers and couldn’t complain about her timetable. The biggest surprise came in the form of a new student, a blonde girl named Harper McIntyre. It couldn’t be an easy feat to join a school where most people had known each other since elementary, but the kind girl, who shared most of her classes except for French, had an infectious laugh, and by the end of the first day Lexa felt like they had been friends for years.

The next few weeks passed by in a blur. Between school, her homework, and soccer practice, Lexa rapidly found herself without much free time. At soccer practice, Coach Ryder announced the arrival of a new center back, Zoe Monroe, who preferred to go by Monroe. The fairly short and athletic girl waved at the group, a glint in her green eyes and a toothy grin of excitement. Her red hair was usually tied back into three braids that Lexa could only approve of. She was impressed the first day when, after two hours of running around, the brunette and her teammates were all left panting, but Monroe barely broke a sweat.

Lexa’s only regret was that she wasn’t able to spend as much time as before with her favorite wolf. She tried to visit the forest after school, and there was always at least one member of the pack to greet her, even when the blonde wasn’t available, but it wasn’t quite the same. About three weeks after the beginning of the school year, she managed to sneak her into her bedroom again, and she remembered to set an alarm this time so Anya wouldn’t notice. Lexa couldn’t really explain why, but in the presence of the large wolf she felt safer than ever, and that night she slept like a baby. Proud of herself for not getting caught, she vowed to invite Clarke again, even if she had to risk her sister’s wrath.

*****

A warm afternoon of October, Anya found herself hitting the punching bag for hours to deal with her frustrations. Her research had been fruitless so far, she still had no clue who the beast who had killed humans near Polis during the summer was. She had been certain it was a werewolf at first, but after spending time patrolling and discussing with Raven and sometimes Monty, she was forced to admit that something was amiss. Most supernatural creatures tended to hide their kills or disguise them as animal attacks. Vampires would either make the cadaver disappear or arrange it in a way that the exsanguination could be explained accidentally, often with a decapitation, for example. Werewolves were less refined, but their claws and teeth were close enough to those of a bear that the coroners would be confused. And yet in those recent cases, the victims had been almost torn apart, and most disturbingly, partially eaten.

To add to her annoyance, she noticed that her little sister had let Clarke spend the night in her bedroom, again. The little shit thought she was being discreet, but she clearly hadn’t taken into account the mattress indentation a 400-pound animal would create, or the blond fur that was left on the blanket.

When Lexa had turned 13, as the responsible adult in her life, Anya had had “the talk” with her. When she had confessed a year later that she didn’t care much for boys, but that Costia, the girl next door gave her butterflies in the stomach, the older Woods had given her the “girls-who-like-girls” version of the talk, much to their shared embarrassment. There was something about mentioning a dental dam to your little sister that made them even less appealing than they already were. But what on earth was she supposed to do now? It’s not like a “My little sister is sneaking around with a centuries-old hybrid” guide was available on Amazon. Anya rolled her eyes at the whole situation she had gotten into and punched the bag with renewed vigor.

A few minutes later, she was heading for the shower room when the hair at the back of her head stood up. Near the gym entrance, a tall man was standing in silence, looking at her. In his mid-20s, with dark skin that contrasted sharply with his white T-shirt, a shaved head, stubble, and bulging muscles, he looked like someone you would expect to see on a catwalk, not in a small private gym. Hell, Anya would probably have hit on him if her sixth sense wasn’t detecting a supernatural vibe.

The stranger approached her slowly, his arms relaxed by his sides and his hands open palms up, as to show that he wasn’t a threat. Once he was close, the blonde noticed that despite his intimidating appearance, his chocolate eyes were looking at her kindly. Forcing her voice not to quiver, she finally addressed him. “Welcome to Grounders. Can I help you?”

“Hello,” he replied, his baritone voice as soft as his dark eyes. “I have been looking forward to talking to you. My name is Lincoln.”

“Anya,” she nodded at him. “I assume you’re part of Clarke’s pack?”

“I am,” he smiled. “Octavia is my mate; you must remember her.”

Spotting the teeth mark at the junction of his left shoulder and neck, Anya had to stop herself from taking a step back. Werewolves didn’t generally take their mates been threatened well, and based on her previous experience, she didn’t stand a chance against a hybrid. Lincoln, however, didn’t seem fazed.

“So, is this the part where you tell me that if I go after your girl again, you’ll end me?”

Lincoln guffawed, surprised by her question. “No. Despite appearances, Octavia is older and a fiercer warrior than I am. Believe me, she is the one you should be scared of.”

“I didn’t come here to threaten you,” he continued after a moment. “I was hoping to talk about your family, if that is all right.”

Whatever Anya had been expecting, it wasn’t that. After letting the man sit in her office, she quickly showered, and joined him in the small room.

“What do you know about my family?” she asked sharply. “Is this about who killed my parents?”

“Sadly, no. I am sorry, when I said your family, I meant your ancestors. From the 19th century to be precise.”

Seeing that Anya wasn’t sure what to say, he carried on. “I suppose the easiest way to start is to tell you how I joined my pack. I was born in 1839 near Washington, to Harry and Margaret Woods.”

“W—Woods?” the blonde interrupted, her eyes comically bulged. “You were a hunter?”

“Yes. I come from the cadet branch of the Woods family to be exact, which makes me your great-great-great-uncle or something. Our crest was a slight variation of yours. My parents started training me when I was a teenager, and I soon joined them and my uncles on their missions. When the Civil War began, many supernatural creatures took advantage of the chaos to make more victims. We tracked and killed dozens of them, and yet more and more seemed to show up. That was my life, until one day, during the spring of 1863, I met Octavia.”

Anya nodded, prompting him to continue. “I didn’t realize what she was right away, but as soon as I saw her, I was completely enamored. As you can imagine, a few weeks later when my family found out her true nature as well as our relationship, things took a turn for the worse. Bellamy nearly killed me after I told the pack that I was a hunter.”

“But in the end, you chose Octavia over your parents?”

“Yes. The longer I spent with her and her pack, the more I realized that everything I had been taught was wrong, or at least incomplete. There are monsters among the vampires and werewolves, of course, but not all of them are like that. Not only don’t Clarke and her family hurt humans, but they also often protect them by hunting down those who leave too many corpses. I tried to show the truth to my family, but they refused to listen. After some time, I was left with no other choice than to run away with Octavia and the others. We mated a few months later, which made me a werewolf, and by 1865, Clarke had made me a hybrid.”

“Clarke? Not your mate?”

“No. Though we are all hybrids, Clarke is the original one, only her blood can turn wolves into hybrids.”

“I see,” she replied. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“Well, first of all, because Lexa and you are the last of my family line. I wanted you to know that, I may not be a hunter anymore, but you are not alone. Secondly, I figured you would want to know what the future might have in store for your sister, should she choose to turn.”

“I see,” the woman sighed, leaning into her chair. “Are you—have you ever regretted it?”

“Not a single time,” he answered, looking at her straight in the eye. “I can only imagine what you think about supernatural creatures in general, but I assure you, from my own experience, being a hybrid is amazing. We are not slaves of our anger or cravings like the others, and the ties that bind us as a pack are stronger. Besides, I was missing part of myself before I met Octavia. I cannot imagine my life without her now, it would be like walking around without my heart. Werewolves mate for life, but hybrids mate for eternity. It is the strongest feeling there is.”

“I can’t keep Lexa away from Clarke, can I?’ Anya asked, defeated. “She is still human, and she already seems closer to Clarke than to anyone else. It scares me.”

“I wouldn’t recommend you to try to separate them, no,” the gentle hybrid replied. “I can assure you that Clarke would never force her or take advantage. It is hard to explain to someone who is not a wolf, but for us, our mate is the single most important in the world. We would do anything to keep them safe and happy. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for Octavia. She is the only person I would consider leaving the pack for. Clarke hasn’t mated with your sister yet, and Lexa already owns her heart. We protect you both because she asked us to, but in truth, we would do it anyway, if only to spare Clarke the pain of losing her soulmate. It would break her beyond repair.”

“Thank you, Lincoln,” the blonde said after a moment. “It’s a lot to digest, to be honest, I’m nowhere near ready to see my little sister become a werewolf. But it was nice to meet you, and to learn a little more about our family’s history.”

“Anytime Anya,” her ancestor answered with a smile. “I should go, I am on patrol tonight. If you ever need anything, even if it’s just to talk, I’ll be there.”

And with that, the dark-skinned man quietly left the gym’s office. Anya exhaled for a few seconds before letting her head fall back on the chair’s backrest. Meeting a hunter who had chosen to switch sides had been an interesting experience, but now her head was buzzing. She was not looking forward to the day Lexa would learn about all of this, and could only hope that she still had time before it happened.

Physically and mentally exhausted, the hunter returned home. At least, her sister had tried to cook dinner, and they ate in relative silence. Once she was done, Anya decided her day had been long enough, and headed to bed.

“I’m beat, night Squid,” she said, before adding with an eye roll, “if you’re planning on inviting Clarke over, make sure she avoids the fourth step, it squeaks.”

Snickering, she left Lexa flabbergasted and with bright red ears in the living room. Two could play that game after all. And when she heard the back door open half-an-hour later, a soft smile found its way onto her face. _Teenagers_.


	6. Chapter 6

Lexa felt as if she had blinked, and Christmas was already upon them. With her teachers drowning them in essays and mentioning the SATs every day, Anya who had started to train her to burn the excess of energy she was feeling recently, and soccer practice, she had barely noticed the passing of the days.

Christmas break meant spending the holidays with Gustus and Indra Argent near D.C., a tradition that preceded her parents’ deaths and that the two sisters diligently maintained. When the Woods had been murdered, the Argents had offered to foster the two girls and to become Lexa’s legal guardians. They had been friends for over two decades, and considered the girls like family. Anya had chosen to step up instead, but their generosity had not been forgotten. Despite her sadness to be separated from Clarke for a few days, Lexa was ecstatic to spend time with her non-blood relatives.

Uncle Gustus looked like a young Santa Claus, if Santa had a much smaller belly and tattoos on his neck and arms. All 6 ft 7 of him oozed strength and control, and he wasn’t the kind of man you would want to cross paths with in a dark alley at night. His long thick black beard, often kept in three braids, reached the middle of his enormous chest. When Lexa was a kid, she had loved to put flowers into them, and the gentle giant had worn the decorations with pride. His hair, now salt-and-pepper, was shaved on the sides and gathered in a single large braid at the back of his head. His chest, which the girls had seen a few times over the years, was covered with scars of various shapes and lengths that he blamed on his job as a police officer.

His wife, who was now opening the front door to welcome the Woods sisters, was both similar to her husband and very different from him. Aunt Indra was a strong, lean, African-American woman peaking at 5 ft 4. Where her husband was often seen joking and guffawing, she was usually more reserved and sterner. Her smiles were a rarity, and were usually offered only to the two young women she loved like daughters. Her job as a private investigator often kept her busy and traveling all around, but she had managed to take a few days off for the holidays.

“Anya, Alexandria, _entrez_ ,” Indra said before hugging the girls. It had been too long since she had seen her protégées. They barely had time to drop their bags on the floor that Gustus engulfed them both in his large arms and lifted them off the floor.

“Uncle Gustus,” Lexa whizzed, “I can’t breathe.”

The man let a belly laugh out and released the sisters. Grabbing a bag in each hand, he led the way to the guest room where they would be staying until after New Year. The room was simple and rarely used, but it had been Lexa and Anya’s every time they visited. The left side was still covered in posters of hard rock bands and sports trophies, and the right side displayed pictures of animals and a small collection of candles. Lexa quickly lit one up, making her older sister roll her eyes.

“I swear Squid, one day this whole fire hazard is going to come back to bite you.”

Not wanting to start another round of this sempiternal argument, Lexa ignored her older sister and plumped down on the bed. Unable to text her furry friend — do werewolves have cellphones? she really needed to ask Clarke next time she’d see her — Lexa scrolled down her Instagram account before falling asleep, the journey catching up to her.

The next morning was Christmas Eve. Like every year, the girls helped the Argents cook a traditional French meal. Lexa was in charge of the entrée, _ballotins de saumon fumé à l’œuf poché_ , with Indra, while Anya helped Gustus prepare the game meat for the main dish. Gustus’s family might have emigrated to the US two 50 years before, they had kept some of their French roots very much alive, for the enjoyment of the girls’ taste buds. They also all spoke French fluently, and had made sure that the sisters learned it too. Anya regularly complained that English was widely spoken enough that it was a waste of time, but Lexa very much enjoyed the Roman language and its literature. She had already read _L’Étranger_ by Albert Camus at least 20 times, although if asked she would probably say that her favorite author was Alexandre Dumas.

They exchanged gifts the following morning, on Christmas Day. Gustus was beaming at the tickets to see the Mets, and Indra thanked them for her new leather satchel engraved with her initials. Lexa hugged her sister, aunt, and uncle tightly after finding a bicycle in the garage. But it was their gift for Anya, a pair of knives, that prompted the conversation they had danced around for three days.

After discovering the existence of the supernatural world and spending over five months with some of its representatives, Lexa wasn’t particularly surprised to hear that Gustus and Indra were also hunters. During those months, she had remembered the scars on Gustus’s chest, and realized that some looked a lot more like claw marks than cuts, and had been inflicted by werewolves. As she had guessed, the couple had been the ones to explain their heritage and mission to Anya and train her after their parents’ death.

The part that interested her most was how the Argents had met her parents. She learned that her mother, Elora, had met her father, Alex Woods, and Indra in university. The three of them had become fast friends, and Alex and Elora had rapidly started dating. During their sophomore year, her father was initiated as a hunter. He was told to keep it a secret, of course, but refused to lie to his girlfriend and best friend. That was how Elora and Indra were sucked into this world as well. Though they didn’t possess the natural strength and stamina of a hunter, they decided to train hard with him and learned to use various weapons that could inflict serious damage on a vampire or a wolf.

After graduating from university, her parents got married, and the three of them began killing supernatural creatures. It was during a mission that they met Gustus Argent, the descendant of another prominent family of hunters. He and Indra quickly hit it off and got married too, despite Gustus’s relatives’ concerns that he was settling down with a “muggle.” When Elora found herself pregnant with Anya, and then some years later with Lexa, the Woods decided to ease off on their missions, with the support of their friends. The four of them had remained very close until Elora and Alex Woods had been killed. Gustus and Indra swore that they had done everything they could back then to find their murderer, but he had vanished from the surface of the Earth. To this day, they still didn’t know why he had attacked them, other than the fact that they were hunters.

The conversation lasted for hours, and took a heavy emotional toll on all of them. Lexa wiped more than one tear from her eyes as her aunt and uncle recounted their shenanigans, hunts, and time in university. Six years after her parents’ passing, she still had many memories of them, but she had long forgotten the sound of their voices, and some details were getting hazy. Hearing about them when they had been about the same age as Anya was now was both exciting and painful. Eventually, they all agreed to spend the rest of the evening playing cards and discussing lighter topics, such as Grounders and Lexa’s studies.

Things got a lot tenser the next day when Titus Bane, one of Gustus’s cousins, joined them. The sisters had met him a few times over the years, and neither of them was particularly fond of the stern, bald man. When they were younger, he had ignored them as much as possible when he had found himself in their presence. They had even heard him once tell their parents that they were coddling them too much and should instill more discipline and rigor into them instead. Anya could have sworn that, that day, Alex Woods had looked ready to murder the bastard.

But when he heard that the sisters had finally learned about their heritage and started to embrace it, he looked at them like he was seeing them for the first time. He began a long monologue explaining how it was their destiny to rid the world of evil creatures, that all the sups were demons, etc. He was only missing a religious book, and they would have confused him with one of those insane preachers on the streets.

To everyone’s surprise but Anya, Lexa rapidly argued against the fact that all sups were bad. She had spent enough time with the hybrids to know that Titus’s views were too black and white. She left the room in a fury when the three older hunters tried to convince her otherwise, leaving Anya downstairs to try to explain the situation. The blonde did her best to summarize the events of the previous few months. How she had tracked a werewolf and been bested, how Lexa had intervened and they had discovered her connection to one of the hybrids. Gustus and Indra were astounded by the story. They didn’t seem particularly pleased to hear that the girls they considered like their daughters had been spending time with the pack, or that Lexa was apparently destined to end up with one of them. Titus, on the other hand, refused to believe in the whole soulmate link. He had been interested to hear about the hybrids, something that no hunter had ever encountered, but he repeatedly urged Anya to keep her sister away from the monsters, and to help the three of them hunt them down. Even the fact that the tall woman had been no match for one of them didn’t deter him.

After a lengthy conversation, the bald man eventually exited the Argents’ house, leaving Anya, Indra, and Gustus to share an awkward silence. The couple wasn’t happy with the way she had handled the situation, but to her defense, they didn’t seem to have another solution to propose either. They had spent enough time studying werewolves to know of soulmates and the bond between packmates, and had to agree that Lexa didn’t seem to have anything to fear from Clarke. They made the blonde promise, however, that if the situation was to change, she would contact them immediately.

When Anya entered the bedroom, she found her younger sister stretched out on her bed, looking at the ceiling. Based on the number of lit candles, she was annoyed.

“You didn’t even try to defend them,” Lexa started, her voice cold. “They are kinda your friends too. I know you spent time with them patrolling and all, and yet you let Titus call them all monsters!”

“It’s more complicated than that, Lex. We have a truce with them, that’s true, but you can’t forget what they are either. Any of them could easily break you into two like a twig.”

“Clarke would never hurt me,” the teenager replied, shaking her head.

“But she did,” Anya whispered. At the look of incredulity on her sister’s face, she sighed and explained herself. “The first time the three of us met, she nearly killed you. You are only alive because she gave you her blood to heal you afterward.”

It took Lexa longer than she would like to admit to understand. “Clarke was the blonde who was holding you that night. She is the one who bit me?” When her sister nodded in reply, she felt her lower lip tremble, and tried her best to keep the tears of anger and sadness at bay.

“You knew and you didn’t tell me? And why didn’t she kill us that night? I still don’t understand how this whole truce happened, and none of you will tell me anything!” she shouted, her emotions getting harder and harder to control.

“I’m sorry, Lex,” Anya answered, her head hung low. “Clarke had her reasons to spare your life, and mine consequently, and I gave her my word that I would let her explain them to you. I never wanted to hide the truth from you, but I agree that it’s something you should hear from her, not me. All I can tell you is that I believe she won’t hurt you anymore. I wouldn’t have let her near you otherwise.”

“For what it’s worth,” she added after a moment of silence between them, “I think you’re right. I’ve spent time with some of the pack members, other than Clarke, and they are nothing like I thought they were. They can be dangerous, but they don’t kill people at random as Titus implied earlier. Gustus and Indra are not thrilled at our situation, but they trust me, and they won’t hurt the pack unless they attack us first.”

Lexa groaned in response and turned to her side. The last two days had been mentally exhausting for her, and the revelation that the wolf she had come to adore was the same beautiful blonde who had tried to hurt her and her sister was plunging her into a whirlpool of emotions. Understanding that she wouldn’t get anything more out of her sister that night, Anya turned off the light and went to bed too.

The next few days were tense at the Argent household, but none of them mentioned the pack of hybrids again. Instead, Gustus and Indra took it upon themselves to help Lexa deal with her pent-up frustrations by making her jog and train in hand-to-hand combat. According to them, the girl was a natural. Her abilities hadn’t quite awakened yet, but she was proving to be an excellent student. When Indra mentioned with a wink that she was better than Anya had been at her age, the blonde huffed and threw her knife into the bullseye of the target 30 yards away.

New Year was a quiet affair. The three hunters and the hunter-in-training went to watch the fireworks in D.C. after a nice dinner, and hugged after the countdown. On January 2nd, the sisters drove back to Polis, each one lost in her own thoughts.

_ballotins de saumon fumé à l’œuf poché = smoked salmon with a poached egg_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> entrez (Fr) = come in
> 
> The smoked salmon with poached egg mentioned here is something that my dad prepares from time to time, it is absolutely delicious!


	7. Chapter 7

After getting home and unpacking, things were still tense between the sisters. Lexa was having a hard time reconciling the feeling of safety she had had every time the big wolf was nearby with the knowledge that she was also the woman who had nearly killed her and Anya. The fact that the pack, the blonde and her own sister were also clearly hiding things from her didn’t help either. The teenager could sense her aggression levels rise more than usual, a consequence of her hunter abilities starting to manifest themselves, and she was having difficulties controlling her temper. After snapping at Anya for the second time in less than five minutes, she decided to enter the forest, knowing that a member of the pack would surely be there to greet her and lead her to Clarke if the blonde wasn’t there herself. Anya offered to stay home and wait for her to come back, but the sulky teenager encouraged her to go patrol instead, knowing that her older sister needed an outlet too after the awkward week they had had.

Lexa hadn’t taken 10 steps into the forest that she saw the large blonde wolf come towards her, her tail happily wavering. She sensed that something was amiss, though, because she sat almost immediately, looking at the girl in concern.

“Things didn’t go so well at my aunt and uncle’s,” Lexa started, deciding to rip off the band-aid. “Anya told them about your pack, how we have a truce, and they weren’t happy about it. My uncle’s stupid cousin kept calling you a monster, and I defended you.” By then, the wolf was becoming agitated, trying to press on the girl’s shoulder with her snout to comfort her, but Lexa stepped back, shaking her head.

“I defended you,” she continued, her voice quivering at the onslaught of emotions threatening to overpower her, “and then Anya told me that you were the one, that night, that almost killed us.”

The wolf deflated at that last sentence, her head hanging lower than before, and a pitiful whimper escaped her throat. Lexa had to force herself to stay immobile when everything inside her wanted to hug the animal and scratch her ears.

“I want to see you, I want answers. Why didn’t you kill us? Why have you been protecting me since that night? You owe me that.”

The animal seemed to hesitate for an instant, before nodding. Her fur started to shorten everywhere except at the back of her head, where it grew. Her snout slowly changed into a human nose; her chops turned into pink lips. Bones all over her body snapped and cracked, until Lexa was faced with a woman about an inch shorter than her, her blue eyes looking at her timidly through long blond eyelashes.

“Lexa.”

*****

At the same time, on the streets of Polis, Anya was running for her life. She could hear the animal getting closer, almost feeling the warm breath on the skin of her neck. She had been patrolling for about 10 minutes when she had found herself face-to-face with a red werewolf, but not one of the pack she had come to know. The supernatural creature was in his animal form, but something seemed wrong with him. His fur was missing patches, his dark bloodshot eyes roaming as if he couldn’t focus, and drool was dripping from his open mouth.

After a few minutes, the blonde turned into a deserted street, panting. Looking over her shoulder, she noticed that the werewolf wasn’t behind her anymore. Holding herself against the wall with one hand, she unsheathed her knife, ready to stab her enemy. She was retracing her steps carefully when a shadow jumped her from above. It was only thanks to her reflexes that she was still breathing, as a giant paw had taken a swing where her head had been half a second before. Rolling away before standing up, she barely had time to jump back to avoid the snapping jaws. The animal was getting closer, growling threateningly, and the hunter could feel the sweat rolling along her spine. She was backing down when he surprised her with a short leap that made her land on her butt. All she could do was throw her knife at his face in hopes to slow him down. The blade embedded itself in his left eye, but not deeply enough to hit the brain, and the monster kept coming at her. The blonde thought her final hour was up, when suddenly a large black wolf rammed into the feral animal, while another grey one jumped in front of the hunter, her face towards the fighting duo.

The black hybrid was stronger, but the sick wolf didn’t seem to register pain, and he kept attacking and attacking, until he managed to scratch his opponent so severely in the stomach that the hybrid whined and lost his footing. The grey wolf refused to budge and abandon the hunter, though, even when the red one came closer. She growled at him, her hackles raised in a threatening display, her deep brown eyes staring into the red ones. Anya knew that, in a normal situation and despite her lean body, she should be able to overpower a simple werewolf. But the one who had come after her was much more dangerous and unpredictable, and the outcome of the fight was more than uncertain. Thankfully for them, the black hybrid, blood still pouring from his wound, managed to get back up and came to stand near his friend, protecting the blonde. To Anya’s relief, the feral wolf, finally sensing that the situation wasn’t in his favor, turned around and fled.

The two hybrids looked at each other, silently conversing, until they seemed to have reached a decision. If Anya had to guess, the black hybrid was too weak to track the sick wolf, and the grey one didn’t want to leave them both behind, opting to retread instead. They were starting to walk back towards the main street when the injured werewolf suddenly gasped and fell, returning to his human form. Lincoln. The gash on his stomach was deep and not healing as fast as it should, weakening him. It took Anya a few seconds to understand the whimpers and movements of the grey hybrid, but eventually, she did and helped place the large man onto the furry back. With a nod, the hunter and the wolf began to trot towards the hybrids’ home.

*****

“Lexa.”

The voice was raspier than she remembered, maybe an effect of the transformation. The teenager was staring at the blonde, unsure where to start. She had so many questions, and had voiced some of them already, but now that the woman was in front of her, beautiful as the sun rising over the ocean, she was at loss for words. Her hesitation was cut short when Clarke spoke again.

“Lexa,” she whispered, pulling the teenager out of her daze. “It’s good to see you again, despite the — circumstances.” She uttered the last word with a grimace. “I apologize for not talking to you sooner, you are right, you deserve answers. I simply—I thought it might be best to wait until you were a little older.”

“I’m nearly 17,” the brunette growled, “I’m not a child anymore. I haven’t been a child since my parents were killed by a werewolf.”

“There is more to all this than you knowing about your heritage,” the blonde replied, trying to appease the angry girl in front of her. “I am sorry for keeping you in the dark about my true motives, but it is for your own good, I swear. All you needed to know was that I would never hurt you.”

“But why? That doesn’t make any sense. I’m a hunter, so is Anya. She tried to kill one of your packmates. Why did you guys let us live that night? Why did _you_? And why protect me in the forest, show me all those beautiful places?”

“Lexa, I—” the blonde started before stopping in the middle of a sentence, her brows frowned in confusion. “Something is wrong, I have to return home.”

“Wait, you can’t just leave me like this,” the teenager snapped.

Clarke didn’t reply immediately, closing her eyes instead for a few moments, listening to the voices of her pack mates. “You are right, I cannot leave you alone, it is unsafe. There is a danger in the city.”

“Anya?” Lexa inquired; fear having replaced the anger that had dominated only moments before.

“She is all right, do not worry _meine Geliebte_ ,” she said, the term of endearment escaping her lips before she could stop herself. “Will you let me carry you to my home? It will be much faster.”

She had meant to carry the brunette in her arms, as she had done the night of their first encounter, and in her dreams since. But the teenager opted to climb on her back instead, visibly more comfortable like that, and Clarke didn’t have the heart or the time to deny her. Without missing another second, she secured the lean legs around her waist with her own arms, and took off.

They arrived at the hybrids’ home a couple of minutes later, and though Lexa looked a little green, she managed to keep the content of her stomach from coming out. She had gotten used to riding the wolf before, and yet it was an entirely different thing to be on the back of a vampire at full speed in the streets of a city. When they entered the magically protected house, she could help but be impressed by the modern decorations and furniture, berating herself for assuming that the hybrids would live in an old decrepit castle. The brunette was relieved to see her older sister a little worse for wear but unharmed in the living room, next to a beautiful woman with dark hair and tanned skin.

“What happened?” Clarke demanded immediately, her eyes scanning the room. “Where is Lincoln?”

“He is doing better,” the black-haired woman replied. “His injury wouldn’t heal, so Octavia is giving him some of her blood.”

At the look of confusion on Anya’s face, the woman continued. “We normally heal by ourselves pretty quickly, but some wounds can take longer, especially if we are injured by silver, or wolfsbane. For us, hybrids, our soulmate’s blood is the fastest remedy that exists, even though the one of a packmate can work miracles too.”

“You were attacked?” the blonde inquired, looking at Anya. The hunter had patrolled the city for months, alone or with Raven and occasionally Monty, but it was the first time that she had been in real danger. Based on the severity of Lincoln’s injury, if they hadn’t found her in time, she would most certainly have been killed.

“Yes. I had barely started to check that area when a werewolf attacked me. But it looked different, sick or something. He chased me for a while before jumping down on me. If not for Raven and Lincoln,” she said, pointing at the woman next to her, “I’d be dead.”

“Clarke, _era un ripa_.”

Clarke looked at Raven in surprise. “That is not possible. We have not seen one in decades. Who would have done such a thing?”

“What's a ripa?” Lexa asked, confused.

“A reaper,” Raven grimly replied, disgust all over her features. “It’s a werewolf injected with vampire blood, again and again. You see, in small quantity, vampire blood doesn’t really affect wolves, it makes them slightly euphoric that’s all. But in large dosage, over a repeated number of times, it starts to act like a drug, making them unable to feel pain, but also crazy.”

“We will need to investigate,” Clarke interrupted. “This is a priority. Reapers are much more dangerous than feral wolves, we cannot allow one to roam in Polis. And we have to find the ones responsible for his condition and put an end to their experimentations.”

After a few minutes of deliberation, Clarke and Raven decided to accompany the Woods siblings back to their home, where other members of the pack would keep an eye on them and make sure that the reaper wouldn’t show his snout. While Anya and Raven decided to remain downstairs to discuss how to proceed from there, the blonde hybrid followed Lexa into her bedroom, knowing that their previous conversation was far from over.

Despite her own reluctance, she explained everything to the teenager. How she had realized that they were soulmates the moment she had bitten her, how she and her pack had sworn to Anya that they would protect them as long as the hunter respected her promise not to attack an innocent supernatural creature, how she had kept an eye on the brunette ever since that night, making sure that no harm would come to her. By the end of her explanation, Lexa was sitting on her bed, torn between confusion and anger.

“So, you mean to tell me that I have no choice in this? I will become a wolf and your mate, it’s just a question of time? How about what I want? How about free will?”

“Lexa,” the blonde sighed, “I understand that it is difficult to accept because you are human. It works differently for wolves. Not all of us have a soulmate, or find it at least, but we see it as a sign from the Universe. Those who don’t have one can still be very happy with their chosen mate, such as Bellamy and Echo, or Jasper and Maya whom you haven’t met yet. But for those who do, it means finding the person with whom you will be happiest, and it is a call that is nearly impossible to resist. When Lincoln and Octavia met, although they didn’t understand their connection at first because he was a human, they couldn’t stay away from each other. She turned him without consulting me, and if the situation had been different, I might have considered punishing her for it. As soon as he was a wolf, however, it was clear that they were meant to be together. No one could have come between them, not even me, Octavia’s sire.”

“What I mean to say,” she continued after a moment of silence, as the girl was still staring at her with her mouth close, “is that I will respect your decision, no matter what it is. I cannot escape this attraction but you, as long as you are human, have a choice. I didn’t want to tell you all of this because it is a lot to accept, and I hoped that we would get to know each other better without that pressure on our shoulders. And also, maybe, that you would learn to love me.”

She pronounced those last words so quietly that Lexa had to lift her head to catch them. When she saw the look of defeat and sadness on the hybrid’s face, she quietly rose and hugged the older woman, unable to stop herself from looping her arms around the slender waist. She felt the blonde’s nose on her throat, inhaling her scent, but she didn’t move her arms, content to let the teenager hold her. After a few seconds, Lexa took a step back, looking nervously at the hybrid.

“I—this is a lot to take in. I need time. You’re right, I’m not ready to make that kind of decision, to know if I can be with someone forever. Up until recently, my main concern was to ace my SATs and go to a good university; but now it’s all vampires, and werewolves, and hybrids, and hunters, and soulmates. This is just too much. I’m just a regular girl...”

“There is nothing regular about you, Lexa,” the blonde gently replied. “But I get it and will give you some space. I hope you understand that my pack has to stay around to protect you, but you will not see me unless you call for me. Anya will be safe too; you have my word. Is that acceptable?”

“Thank you, Clarke.”

Nodding once, the hybrid turned around and left the room, not wanting to let the girl who held her heart see how her rejection, albeit understandable, had hurt. She had neglected her quest for far too long, and it was time to focus on it once again, her soulmate couldn’t be a constant distraction. She owed it to her pack to keep them safe, and finding who was creating reapers once more had to be her priority. Shaking herself, she wished Anya goodnight, and exited the house that she had come to consider her second home without a backward glance.

Alone in her room, Lexa sat back on the bed, tears rolling down her cheeks freely. She knew that it was the right thing to do, that she couldn’t ask Clarke to stay by her side while she wasn’t ready to give her what she wanted. And yet, at the same time, the thought of not seeing the beautiful wolf who had been a constant reassuring presence in her life for the past five months was breaking her heart. Exhausted, she lay down and tried to relax, but it took an eternity for sleep to claim her that night, the sapphire eyes swirling in her mind.

Wolf Raven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> meine Geliebte (Ger.) = my love
> 
> era un ‘ripa’ (Sp.) = it was a reaper


	8. Chapter 8

The end of Lexa’s junior year had come faster than she had expected it to. As Clarke had promised, she had stayed away from the brunette, relying on her packmates to protect the object of her affection. The main difference was that the hybrids didn’t mind turning in front of the teen anymore, and she got to know some of them more. The first one was Lincoln, the large black wolf she had seen many times in the forest, who told her about their blood relation and how he had fallen for Octavia. The second one was the man’s soulmate who, much like her wolf, always seemed to be smirking at the teenager. She also met Raven, who was apparently spending an awful lot of time with her sister, Jasper and Maya, Bellamy and Echo, and Monty. The biggest surprise had been the day a sandy wolf turned out to be Monty’s mate, Harper. Her classmate confessed that Clarke had asked one of them to protect Lexa at school, and that she had volunteered, curious to see how the curriculum had changed since her time.

Although Lexa hadn’t been able to make up her mind about everything that Clarke had told her and the choice she would have to make one day, she was happy to see that everybody in the pack was welcoming and friendly. It reassured her to know that, should she decide to go through with it, she would find a family in them. On the other hand, she hadn’t heard from Gustus and Indra much since New Year, and she wondered if they would ever understand and accept her as a wolf. The thought of losing her substitute parents was tearing a hole in her heart.

*****

The blonde gathered her clothes in disarray on the floor, putting on her shirt swiftly over her head, before grabbing her pants. It seemed like she would have to go commando, as she was unable to locate her panties.

“It was the last time. We can’t continue doing this.”

The woman lying in bed, stark naked, chuckled before retrieving the missing panties from under a pillow and toying with them, her gaze not leaving her half-dressed companion.

“I distinctly remember you saying something similar last week. And three weeks ago. And before that—”

“Yes, I know,” the blonde replied, snatching her undergarment. “But I mean it this time. My situation is complicated enough as it is, I can’t be involved with you on top of it.”

“Because we both know how you _hate_ being on top,” the dark-haired woman chuckled. Seeing her companion's eyebrow raised and the absent smile on her face, she rolled her eyes. “We are not doing anything wrong. We are both adults, single, having fun. It is only a problem if you turn it into one.”

“Raven,” the blonde sighed, before sitting on the bed and caressing the tanned woman cheek far more gently than she had meant, “I have fun with you. You’re brilliant, funny—”

“Drop dead gorgeous,” the cocky voice interrupted.

“Yeah, that too,” she replied, a small smile pulling at one side of her mouth. “But I have responsibilities. And Lexa. I can’t let her down.”

“Your sister will be fine, An. She has a pack of the strongest creatures in the world protecting her 24/7. She wouldn’t be able to play hooky without you hearing about it, let alone get in danger.”

“But we still haven’t found the wolf that attacked me that night, and we aren’t any closer from the bastards that turn him into a reaper either.”

“I am aware, thank you,” the hybrid replied dryly, turning her face to the other side of the bed.

“Hey, Raven, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Anya murmured, her eyes staring at the faint bite mark on the woman’s throat, only visible if you knew where to look.

After the hunter’s encounter with the reaper, the two women had spent more and more time together, patrolling or searching for clues on the vampires that were injecting wolves with their blood. After a particularly long and frustrating night, Raven had told the blonde her story and why it was personal for her.

The woman, born in Spain in the 15th century, had from a very young age demonstrated a mind far brighter than anyone around her. By the age of 20, she had invented various machines and contraptions that could have revolutionized society. Sadly, being a female with a sharp tongue and a brilliant mind during the Renaissance was not an easy fate, and she ended up being accused of witchcraft, her inventions destroyed or stolen. Luckily for her, Clarke, Octavia, and Bellamy were around at that time, and having heard rumors of the woman’s inventions, they helped her escape prison and flee to Italy. After spending a few weeks with the three strangers that had saved her life, Raven rapidly noticed that they weren’t quite human. But instead of running away in fear, she asked to be made immortal so she could continue to build more machines. Hearing her plea, Clarke offered to turn her into a hybrid, the life of a vampire being a rather solitary one. That was how Raven, at 22 years old, joined the pack. Not wanting her creations to go to waste, she found a young man by the name of Leonardo and took him under her wing. Thanks to her and Clarke’s tutelage, the young Italian acquired a pretty good reputation over the years, both for his inventions and for his paintings.

A few decades later, during the 16th century, the pack was moving around Europe, not staying too long in one place for fear people would realize they didn’t age. In England, they met a newly turned werewolf by the name of Finn Collins. The young man had a hard time controlling his temper and he had injured a few people in the nearby towns. Clarke moved to eliminate him but Raven, quickly taken by his charming smile, begged her not to. She spent a few years teaching him how to show restraint and the two fell in love, despite not being soulmates. After their mating, Clarke agreed to turn him into a hybrid, wanting to spare her friend the pain of losing him after 150 years or so.

The two lovers were happy for centuries, till 1910, when Finn was kidnapped. The pack looked for him for months to no avail, until one day, Raven’s mating bite suddenly burned like the fires of hell. Finn was dead. It took years after that for the dark-haired woman to get over the pain, with the help of her family. Her sadness subsided decade after decade, as the bite on her throat was disappearing until it was barely more than a memory. A few more of their friends went missing without a trace during the last century, and the pack had been on edge over since. They suspected that the people responsible were the same ones who were making reapers, and were looking forward to settling the score.

After hearing her sad story, Anya had wanted nothing more than to comfort the woman. Not being particularly prone to displays of affection, she had awkwardly hugged her, making Raven snicker at her burning cheeks. The blonde didn’t kiss her that night, feeling that it wasn’t the right moment. But a few days later, after another patrol side-by-side, the Hispanic woman pulled her in an alcove and kissed her until her knees buckled and she was out of breath. Neither of them had come home that night, and it had been only the first of many similar encounters, despite the hunter’s weak protests. Anya would rather be dipped into a boiling bath than admit it, but she had never felt that way about anyone, and it terrified her. The beautiful woman was rapidly becoming an important part of her life, and she was feeling terrible about it, knowing that her sister was torn about her situation with Clarke. As if her life hadn’t been complicated enough, those hybrids had really turned it upside down, _damn it_.

She was on her way to the door when Raven suddenly stood up and walked to join her, in her birthday suit. She put her hand on the knob with a smirk, offering to open it, when Anya growled and pinned her against the wood instead. This was the last time, _honest_!

*****

The whistle echoed around the stadium, stopping the action. The two teams approached, each trying to defend itself, but the man remained firm: a foul, and a direct free kick for the Polis Warriors. Though it had been outside the penalty area, the position was still very advantageous for the Warriors at around 25 m from the goal, towards the left. The blue players formed the wall, while the Warriors agreed on who would kick the ball.

Lexa moved forward, Monroe and another of her teammates on the side, pretending to get ready too. The brunette was feeling the pressure on her shoulders. They were in the last 5 minutes of the last game of the season, currently tied 1–1. It was now or never. Remembering a breathing exercise Anya had taught her during their training sessions, she inhaled, blocked, exhaled, blocked a few times. She could do it, they all knew she could. She had always been good at soccer, and this past year, with the emergence of her hunter abilities, and especially her enhanced stamina, she had become a key player. Inhaling deeply, she stepped forward. One, two, three, four, and the inside of her right foot hit the ball perfectly, sending it to fly just over the wall, into the top corner — GOAL! Beaming, the 17-year-old didn’t even have time to wave at her sister on the bleachers that the rest of her teammates jumped on her back, all of them falling into a pile of legs and arms. The last few minutes of the game were nothing more than a formality, and by the time the final whistle was heard, Lexa roared with pride. After hugging her teammates and shaking hands with their opponents, she was heading for the locker room when she spotted blond hair near the other side of the stadium. Clarke. Feeling a pang in her stomach, the brunette spoke out loud, hoping that the hybrid would be able to hear her despite the distance and the surrounding noise.

“Clarke? Please, wait.” When the woman stopped dead in her tracks and turned slowly, Lexa breathed out in relief. “I have to take a shower and speak to my team but, can you wait for me? I—I’d like to talk to you.”

Happy to see the blonde nod, Lexa ran to the locker room where she showered in record time, and after agreeing to meet her teammates later for a celebratory dinner, she made it back to the field, now empty. She found Clarke near the forest, alone.

“Lexa,” she started, looking at her feet, “I am sorry, I said I would leave you alone, but it was your last game—”

“I’m glad you came. I missed you,” the brunette stammered a little, running her hand in her damp hair. “Did you enjoy the game?”

“Very much yes. You were excellent.”

After a few minutes of awkward silence where they had started to head back towards the Woods house, Clarke looked at her hesitantly.

“You wanted to talk to me?”

“Yeah, I—as I said, I miss you. I’m sorry for not contacting you sooner, I should have, but...”

“But things are still confusing,” the blonde acknowledged, knowing that the young girl couldn’t possibly be ready for such a commitment yet.

“Yes, I’m still a mess, sorry. I haven’t decided if I want to become part of your pack or not, but now that the truth is out, it’s hard to move forward, you know? I just—I wanted to tell you that I understand why you didn’t tell me before. It’s a huge thing to accept, but at the same time, I haven’t been able to date anyone, because what’s the point if I know that I won’t end up with them?”

At the mention of her soulmate possibly being with someone else, Clarke couldn’t stop the growl that escaped from the back of our throat, causing the brunette to raise an eyebrow, a half-smirk visible on her face.

“Sorry,” the hybrid grumbled, looking at her shoes. She was a 15-century-old wolf for bloody sake, not a pup! At least she had made the girl chuckled, not cower in fear. “Wolves tend to be rather jealous, but I will keep myself in check, I promise.”

“You should know that I won’t fault you if you want to date someone else; how did Raven put it? ‘live a little’ I think it was,” the blonde reluctantly added. “You haven’t promised me anything, I have no right to act like belong to me.”

“You would really be OK with that?” the teenager asked, surprise. Based on Clarke’s previous reaction and the grimace she was sporting at that moment, the thought was killing her. And yet, she was willing to suffer to let Lexa live her life, free of guilt. A rush of affection threatened to overpower her at that thought, and she had to look to the side to hide the tears in her eyes.

“It is the right thing to do,” the blonde shrugged, not able to look at Lexa. “I don’t have a say in what you do, Lexa. All I can hope for is that, if I am not your first love; at least I will be your last.”

The strength of that statement shook Lexa to the core. It was one thing to promise a person to love them till death do you part — and based on the number of divorces in recent decades, it was easier said than done — but hybrids, unless someone managed to kill them, lived forever. And yet Clarke was speaking as if it was the only sure thing in the world, that she would never fall out of love with the brunette. It was both scary and the most beautiful thing anyone could ever say to her. At that moment, looking at the woman in front of her, that centuries-old work of art who was trusting her with her heart, Lexa swore to herself that she would take care of it better than she had in the past months.

“Clarke, please, look at me,” she whispered. When the blonde finally raised her head, sapphire eyes hesitant, she offered her the warmest smile she could muster. “I’m not ready to be turned, not yet. But I also don’t really want to be with anyone else. You are the only person I have ever felt this connected to, if it makes sense?”

When the blonde nodded in acknowledgment, she continued, reassured. “Maybe we shouldn’t date quite yet, but I—could we spend time together again? And not just with you as a wolf. I mean, I don’t know anything about you.”

“I would love that,” she heard in reply, the smile on Clarke’s face brighter than the sun. “And you can ask me anything you want.”

Despite what she had just said, if the hybrid kept smiling like that, Lexa would have a hard time not grabbing her by the neck and joining their lips. Friends first, right. She could do friends.


	9. Chapter 9

Grounders was stuffy and warm on that particular evening of August, and it reminded Lexa of a steam room more than a gym. The brunette had been training for two hours already, Anya relentlessly attacking her with empty hands, a staff, or even knives. They had been practicing all summer, and the hard work — enhanced by the natural abilities of the hunter in her — was starting to pay off. Gone was the slightly lanky teenager with slender arms and legs. She had put on a good 10 pounds of muscles over the last 2 months, and though it had been awkward at first, she was becoming very proud of her body. Her shoulders, once narrow, were now broader and more muscular, thanks to all the chin-ups Anya was forcing her to do. Her arms were well-defined, and without being a bodybuilder, she knew that when she flexed them, it didn’t leave Clarke indifferent. Her stomach, still flat, was sporting the outline of a six-pack; and if her breasts hadn’t changed much, the stronger pectoral muscles under made them look perkier than before. Her legs had always been powerful, thanks to the hours she had spent running after a soccer ball, but she had never been able to lift so much weight before.

And there was more than the obvious physical transformation. Her stamina had increased tenfold, allowing her to run like a marathoner through the forest. Her reflexes were also much faster, which had come in handy when Anya had started throwing blunt knives and various shuriken at her. Even though the taller blonde still had the upper hand most of the time during their fights, Lexa was winning more and more regularly.

When her sister slid the staff towards her face, Lexa dodged with a quick side-step, before walking into her guard and holding one of Anya’s hand on the _jo_. Putting her forefoot between Anya’s legs, she pushed under her sister’s chin and sent her to roll back onto the mat without her staff. Before the blonde could stand up again, Lexa had armed the _jo_ over her head and brought it down, stopping millimeters from the sweaty forehead.

“Well done, Squid,” the hunter smiled, before grabbing the offered hand and getting back on her feet.

“Very impressive,” a voice echoed from behind them. “Can I have a go at it?”

Turning around, Lexa spotted Lincoln, his usual gentle smile on and a glint in his eyes. She had spent a lot of time with her distant relative recently, more than with any other hybrid except for Clarke, and the man had become a steady presence in the Woods sisters’ lives. Though they had run together in the forest before, Lexa had never fought him, and was both excited and nervous at the prospect.

“That’s a great idea. I still have a lot to teach Lexa, but it will do her some good to go against someone who doesn’t move only like a human would,” Anya replied, stepping to the side.

The brunette got into position, her guard up and ready, while Lincoln simply smirked. Before she could even blink, he was behind her, his right arm crooked around her neck, his left holding her own tightly. The girl had learned different techniques to break this kind of hold, but the giant didn’t move an inch when she tried to push him to the side with her hips. Kicking his shin and stomping on his foot didn’t get a flinch out of him. Lexa cocked her head forward to gain enough momentum to bash his nose with the back of her skull, however, before she could, he practically lifted her off the ground by the neck. Stars started to appear behind her eyelids with the lack of oxygen, and she had no other choice but to tap on his forearm, conceding defeat.

“You cannot let a sup get behind you, Lex,” the man warned her, a serious look on his face. “A vampire will bite your neck instantly, and a wolf will either break it or tear it apart. As long as you are facing them, you still have a chance. But if they get behind you, you’re as good as dead.”

“I understand. Again!”

Another hour later, Lexa was exhausted. Training with Lincoln was an enriching experience, but even with her newfound stamina, she was ready to crawl into bed and sleep for 48 hours. She wondered if she would see Clarke before going to bed. The two of them had spent a lot of time together recently, like they had until Christmas, with Clarke in her human form more often than not. They had spent hours talking about everything and nothing, from Lexa’s plans after high school and favorite memories with her parents to Clarke’s life and art.

The brunette had eventually learned that the hybrid had been born in the 6th century in what was now Germany, although at the time it was part of the French kingdom. Her parents, both werewolves, had left their respective packs to be together, not wanting to be trapped in the incessant pack quarrels and between wolves and vampires. During Abigail’s pregnancy, she had fallen ill, and they had been worried they would lose the pup. Clarke’s father, Jacob, was a very open-minded man for the time, making friends with anyone he could talk to, and one of his old acquaintances happened to be a vampire by the name of Marcus. Though they weren’t sure that it would change anything, Marcus agreed to let Abigail drink some of his blood in hopes that it would cure her and help the baby grow stronger. As no other hybrid was ever reported apart from those she had turned herself, Clarke couldn’t be certain of what happened, yet she suspected that, while a pup in the womb, she died with Marcus’s blood in her system. Maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t been born yet, but the precious liquid had an effect it didn’t usually have on werewolves; it brought her back to life.

When Clarke was born, her parents rapidly realized that she was no normal pup. On top of being stronger and larger than them, she wasn’t forced to turn during the full moon, and she needed to drink blood now and then. Not wanting their daughter to be hunted by their former packs for being different, Jacob and Abigail, with the help of Marcus who saw her as a miracle, hid her until she was strong enough to defend herself. Although werewolves age almost three times slower than humans, they eventually noticed that Clarke wasn’t getting older anymore once she reached her early 20s. Sadly, the blonde hadn’t known at that time that her blood was the key to make more hybrids, and after another 100 years together, she had lost her parents. Her uncle Marcus had remained by her side for a couple of centuries, before Clarke had decided to roam around Europe on her own.

While remembering the day she had learned about her soulmate’s past, an afternoon in the forest where they had sat by the waterfall, Lexa caressing Clarke’s hand while the blonde tried to hold back tears, the teenager almost made it all the way to her home. She could already see her front door when suddenly, a sharp pain erupted from her left shoulder. Turning her head around, she barely had time to notice the extremity of a sleeping dart that she felt herself lose consciousness.

*****

Bellamy and Jasper were on "Lexa duty" that evening, as Clarke was busy looking for clues about the reapers with Monty and Raven’s help, and would take over later. The two male hybrids had relieved Lincoln after their training session at Grounders, and they were following the brunette from afar when a weird smell caught their attention. As the girl was almost home, they strayed from their charge to investigate, and to their surprise and confusion, found a piece of rotten meat hidden on top of a roof. The foul smell would have made a normal human gag, and the wolves had to pinch their noses to lessen their need to vomit. They were wondering how and why this situation had come to happen when the sound of screeching tires made them lift their heads in unison. Down the street, they noticed a van with its lateral door open, and a bald man shoved a lifeless Lexa inside before jumping in and driving away. The meat had had to have some drugs in it, because, despite their supernatural reflexes, the hybrids moved slower than usual, and arrived too late to see where the vehicle had disappeared. Clarke was going to skin them alive.

After telepathically informing their sire of what had happened, the two men decided to return to Grounders to talk to Anya. The hunter would hopefully have an idea of who could be foolish enough to kidnap the teenager. When she heard that her sister was missing, Anya tried to tackle the hybrids, and if it weren’t for their abnormal strength, she would probably have left them both on the floor with broken limbs. But when they described the driver who had taken Lexa, the blonde turned positively murderous. She did not doubt that Titus, her uncle’s crazy cousin was behind it. The drugged rotten meat to distract the hybrids and the sleeping darts screamed hunter tactics. As Clarke was still far away and would need some time to make her way back to Polis, Bellamy, Jasper, and Anya decided to return to the Woods’ house, hoping to find some clues as to where Titus was taking the girl.

The three companions were about to leave Grounders when gas canisters appeared out of nowhere and started emitting a red smoke that made them cough. Anya was the first one to pass out, followed by Jasper and then Bellamy. Despite their hybrid constitution, the sleeping gas was so potent that the two men hadn’t managed to move more than a few steps.

When they woke up, hours later, the three of them were locked up in a strange room. The pungent smell around was difficult to identify, but the hybrids guessed that they were being kept underground. Both men were tied onto a table, several metallic straps holding them down, while Anya was simply in a cage. The blonde tried to open the lock, but without anything to pick it, she was powerless for now. Before she could talk to her two companions, a door opened at the back of the room, and several men entered. Based on the pallor of their skin and the way they moved, gliding on the floor rather than taking steps, these were vampires. At their front came a man who had probably been turned in his 60s, a surprisingly old age for a vampire, with white hair and blue eyes. Next to him stood a younger man, with a similar nose, longer hair towards the back of his head, and dark brown eyes. The other vampires were standing behind them, carefully eyeing the hybrids and ready to intervene to protect their leaders if needed.

“Hello,” the old one started, “and welcome to Mount Weather.”

“Vampires,” Bellamy hissed, his fangs protruding, “what do you want? And where did you take us?”

“This is an abandoned mine, about 100 km away from Polis. My kind and I have been living here for decades once the humans left, having grown tired of this kind of work. Over time, we had familiars bring in furniture, machines, and such. I would say that we made quite a life for ourselves,” the white-haired man chuckled.

“What. Do. You. Want?” the dark-haired hybrid replied with a growl.

“Wolves, always hot-tempered,” the other vampire tsked. “Since you ask, we want your blood. You see, my friends and I realized about a century ago that hybrid blood is the key to allowing us to walk under the sun. For now, it only works for a few hours, but one day, we will find a way to make it permanent!”

“You! You are the ones who have been kidnapping our pack mates for so long,” Jasper shouted, his eyes a mix of fear and ire.

“Yes. Contrary to the rest of our kinds, we have always been keen on technology and modern science. My son and his friend, Lorelei,” the old vampire said, pointing at the brown-eyed man beside him and a dark-skinned woman behind him, most probably of Indian descent, “are particularly good at chemistry. They are the ones who designed the gas that knocked you out as well as the drug mixed with our blood that makes werewolves much more compliant.”

“You mean that turns them into beasts,” Bellamy replied, his furor threatening to overpower him.

“An interesting side effect Cage hadn’t predicted I’m afraid. But they are vital to us, as they are strong enough to capture even a mighty hybrid.”

“And how long are you planning on doing this? Our pack has been hunting you for a while, eventually, they will find you and kill you all.”

“Till we find a way to make the effect of your blood permanent or become hybrids ourselves,” the man called Cage answered with a sneer. “You’ve been roaming long enough, it’s our turn. We deserve to see the sun just as much!”

“That’s impossible. Even Clarke can’t turn vamps into hybrids.”

“Jasper,” Bellamy warned with a growl. Seeing that it had caught their enemies’ attention, the curly-haired man sighed and explained. “Vampires cannot become hybrids. We have tried before. You cannot change the nature of something already dead.”

Based on Cage’s face, that was the wrong thing to say. The vampire scowled before hissing, a long, guttural sound that made the hair on the back of Anya’s neck stand. The hunter remained immobile in her cage, pretending to be unconscious but not missing a word of the conversation.

“We might not have succeeded yet, but we will find a way. Even if we have to kill every last one of you in the process!”

The man strode out of the room, followed by the rest of the vampires, leaving the hybrids tied on the table, unable to move.

“If I were you,” the old leader said, looking at Bellamy and then Jasper, “I would make myself comfortable. You are going to be here for quite some time. After all, the last hybrid we captured lasted years before the blood loss finally became too much.”

Anya took great pride in her composure. Ever since she was a little girl, she had always been strong and stubborn, hiding her emotions and fear behind a mask of cool indifference and snarky comments. But that day, finding herself at the mercy of a group of vampires, the creatures she had come to see as friends being prisoners and promised to a slow and painful fate, she felt something she had never experienced before. Utter terror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jo = wooden staff used in Aikido
> 
> https://blackbeltwiki.com/aikido-jo-dori  
> jo technique described used at 0’46 on the Morihiro Satito Sensei video


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: blood, violence and gore. Might want to avoid eating when you read this one...

When Lexa woke up the morning after her abduction, her head was heavy and her mouth furry. Moving her eyes left and right with a frown, she could see that she was in a small room, probably in a factory of a sort based on the metallic walls. The room was bare, apart from the mattress she was on, and the radiator one of her ankles was shackled to. It took a long time to remember the events that had led to her current predicament. The afternoon training at Grounders with Anya and Lincoln, walking home, and then nothing. Whoever was responsible for this had to have planned it meticulously to manage to kidnap her despite the constant surveillance of the pack.

The 17-year-old was trying to free herself of the shackle or to break the radiator when the door opened, revealing a man she was only half-surprised to see.

“Titus!” she growled, “let me go! What do you want with me?”

“Well, my young Alexandria, it’s time for you to embrace your destiny. You are going to help me get rid of those monsters that follow you everywhere. I left a message for your friend, the blonde one, we can start with her.”

“You are insane! They are my friends, I will never do anything to hurt them, especially Clarke. She is my—she is special.”

The bald man huffed and left a tray with some food and a cup of water before exiting the room, locking the door again. Lexa jumped to see if there was something that she could use to free herself, but the man had been a hunter longer than she had been alive, he wouldn’t make such a beginner mistake. The plate and cutlery were made of plastic, so was the cup, and the food, a hamburger steak and some mashed potatoes didn’t offer any bones which could help her pick a lock or stab someone in the eye. Even when he allowed her to use the toilets an hour later, he tied her ankles and her hands together and stood behind the stall door.

“We need to get ready,” Titus told her about two hours later, “the blonde hybrid was just at your house and she found my note. She should be here soon.”

“Titus, why are you doing this? She is a good person, she doesn’t hurt humans,” Lexa tried to reason with him again, worried about what the hunter was planning on doing to her soulmate.

“She is a monster!” he shouted; his eyes crazy. “It is our sacred duty to kill them all, not make friends with them. I should have known that you and your sister would turn out to be a disappointment. After all, you are your parents’ daughters.”

“What do you mean? Our parents were hunters like you.”

“Like me?” he roared. “The mighty Alexander and Elora Woods, so strong, so talented, from an ancient family of hunters. Everyone sang their praises, said they were so special, the best hunters there were. I spent my whole life training and hunting beasts, and for what? Your parents got all the glory, Gustus preferred to be with them than with me. And the worst part? Once they had you rug rats, they turned their backs on their duty. They became soft, complacent, too busy playing Mommy and Daddy. No wonder that Quint guy got them in the end.”

Lexa had stopped listening to the man’s insane rant, his delusion and jealousy irritating her. That last part, however, got her attention. Not even Gustus and Indra had been able to discover the identity of her parents’ killer.

“Who is that Quint guy?” she asked, her voice ice cold. “How do you know who murdered them?”

His smirk and the crazy glint in his eyes when he turned to face her made her skin crawl, but she forced herself to remain steady. She would not show this nutcase her fear, no matter what.

“I guess it’s time I told you my little secret,” he exulted. “You are wondering how I know the name of the wolf that ended your precious parents? Because I was the one who sent him their way.”

It took everything in Lexa’s power for her not to launch herself at the man and pluck out his eyes. The feeling of betrayal was only second in intensity to the disgust she had for the man who, because of his jealousy, had gotten her parents killed. She vowed that, as the first opportunity, she would choke the life out of him herself.

“You see,” the bald man continued, “they didn’t deserve all that recognition. They weren’t hunters anymore, too busy raving about how you and your sister were the best things that had ever happened to them. Like being hunters was nothing. So, one day, I found a pack of werewolves not too far from your house, and I poisoned all of them. I might not be the best fighter there is, but I’m very good with traps and poisons. Anyway, they all died, except the alpha, a dumb beast called Quint. I left some clues leading him to believe that your parents had been the ones responsible, and voila! Too bad that moron found them on a night you and Anya were out, or I’d have gotten rid of all the Woods in one go.”

Lexa felt some tears roll down her cheeks, that she did her best to conceal from the insane man standing near her. The sadness inside her since the death of her beloved parents, the anger she had for the man who had betrayed them, the frustration at herself for getting caught and putting Clarke in danger, all of it was bubbling under the surface and made her tense her jaw so hard her teeth hurt. She was pondering how she could escape her ties when one of the outside cameras picked up a tuft of blond hair in a far corner.

“Looks like our guest has arrived,” Titus sneered before placing himself behind Lexa, a knife to her throat. “I guess it’s time to see if that ridiculous soulmate connection you were talking about is real to her.”

If Clarke had run all the way in her wolf form, it was as a human that she entered the empty factory, her eyes looking around for danger. When she spotted the girl that she loved being held hostage by a sleazy bald man, she emitted a threatening growl.

“Don’t move Beast, or Lexa dies. You might be fast, but you won’t reach me before I slit her throat.”

“Let her go,” the blonde said in a calm voice, staring at his dark brown eyes. “Your quarrel is with me and my kind, not her.”

“Do you think I’m stupid? Besides, she is a traitor to all the hunters. She can watch you die first.”

“Clarke! It’s a trap, run! Don’t wo—”

Before Lexa could finish, Titus knocked the side of her head with the butt of his knife, stunning her. The wound wasn’t deep, but a trickle of blood oozed out and dribbled down her cheek. Clarke, eyes all red in fury, had jumped forward, but she was a few meters away from the hunter who had his weapon back at the teenager’s throat.

“Ah, ah, ah! That’s close enough,” Titus tutted, swaying his finger. “Let’s play a game, shall we? I have these little things of my invention, they contain wolfsbane and holy water. How many does it take to kill a hybrid do you reckon?”

And without further ado, he grabbed a ball about the size of a grenade that hung from his belt and threw it at Clarke. The blonde could have easily avoided the projectile, but worried that the hunter would hurt her soulmate if she moved, she stayed resolutely rooted in her spot, bracing for the pain. It was like nothing she had ever felt, and she couldn’t stop the scream that tore her throat. In her long life, she had had a few encounters with both wolfsbane and holy water, sometimes accidentally, the rest of the time at the hands of hunters. They were both painful for her, but it had never been at the concentration used in the grenades. She felt her skin bubble and tear in various places, and she struggled to stay up.

“You call me a beast,” the woman groaned, pain audible in every word, “but you are the one holding a knife to a teenager’s throat. A girl you have known her whole life. A girl _I_ would gladly die to protect. So tell me, hunter, which one of us is the monster here?”

Laughing madly, the bald man threw another two devices at her. One exploded near her legs, making her drop to her knees in agony, while the other spread its content on her face. Her eyes melt as the liquid made its way through her eyelids, and she would have howled if she had still been able to move the muscle now gushing blood that had been her tongue. Hybrids had formidable regenerative abilities, even more than werewolves and vampires normally had. But they were as vulnerable to holy water and wolfsbane as they were, and with both elements running down her skin and through her veins, Clarke couldn't heal herself. All she could do was hope that her packmates would arrive soon and save Lexa before she died and Titus turned his insanity towards the teenager.

“Stop! Oh God, please stop!” Lexa cried, unable to look at the hybrid now lying on the floor who was wheezing painfully with each breath.

“You can make it stop,” Titus whispered into her ear. “I have plenty more grenades to make her suffer, but you can take this silver knife and plunge it in her heart. Considering how weak she is now, she’ll die instantly.”

“I will never hurt her!” Lexa shouted, extricating herself from his grip at last and standing between him and the blonde.

“Then you’ll die with her.”

Titus grabbed a gun from behind his back, and pointed it at the brunette. Seeing how close they were to each other, Lexa knew that she would never be able to dodge the projectile, but she refused to step aside. She stared at the barrel, waiting for the bullet to come.

BANG!

Lexa’s eyes, which had closed of their own accord, opened after a couple of seconds when she realized, in shock, that she hadn’t been hit. Instead, she found Titus sprawled on the floor with his eyes bulged in surprise, blood and other matters escaping from the back of his head, a neat round wound between his eyes. Jerking around, the brunette spotted Indra, gun smoking in her right hand.

“Lexa, are you OK?” she asked in concern. “Did he hurt you?”

“No, I’m fine,” the brunette replied, before shouting, “Clarke!” and kneeling by the hybrid’s side.

The blonde was a giant wound. Her skin was red and angry, blood gushing from various places. Her face was so damaged that Lexa could barely make out the once beautiful features. Tears rolling down, she asked her aunt, “What can I do? Why isn’t she healing?”

“Lexa... Her injuries are critical. Whatever Titus used on her; it looks like she isn’t regenerating. I’m sorry Little One, I don’t think there is anything we can do for her.”

Lexa wiped her tears, and noticed their pink color, mixed with the blood that was still dripping down her face.

“I can save her,” she said confidently, and before her aunt could stop her, she cut her wrist with the knife Titus had wanted to give her. Clenching her jaw at the pain, she shoved her arm against the blonde’s face, the red liquid entering the battered opening. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then all of a sudden Lexa felt two fangs puncture her wrist and a greedy mouth suckle at her wound.

“That’s good, Clarke. You’re going to be OK,” she cooed, caressing the blond hair matted with black blood.

The hybrid groaned in reply, not letting go. Her pale skin slowly regrew, her injuries healing at an accelerated rate. Despite the slight pain and the feeling of lightheadedness, the brunette didn’t remove her arm until she saw the dark blue eyes open, grateful to her hunter abilities that prevented her from passing out as quickly as during their first meeting.

“Hey there,” she whispered, cleaning the mess on the hybrid’s face. “For a minute, I thought I’d lost you.”

“Lex,” the blonde sighed, her voice raspier than usual from her barely healed throat, “why didn’t you try to escape? He was going to kill you.”

“Because he’d have killed _you_ if I had, and that wasn’t an option.”

“I have had a long life. You have not even celebrated your 18th birthday, you should not—”

Mindful of the blonde’s tender skin, Lexa quieted her by gently pushing her lips onto the pink ones under her. The conditions were far from ideal for a first kiss, with her aunt sitting next to them, a body nearby, and the hybrid’s condition. And yet, despite its brevity, it was the sweetest, tenderest kiss of Lexa’s life. She pulled back, a smile on her face, when she heard Indra clear her throat.

“We should leave. Gustus was watching the perimeter, he’ll get the car. Can you walk?” the dark-skinned woman asked, looking at the blonde who nodded before slowly standing up, an arm around her soulmate’s shoulders.

“How did you even find us?” Lexa inquired.

“Titus approached us a few weeks ago, asking for our help in killing the hybrids. We refused, and kept an eye on him. I’m sorry, we should have warned you but we didn’t think he would go through with it on his own. When we realized he was headed for Polis, we followed him. He managed to lose us on the way to this factory, so when we saw Clarke, we tracked her down instead.”

Gustus’s pickup stopped right in front of the main entrance, and the three women wasted no time in getting in. While Lexa thanked her relatives for saving them and gave directions to the hybrids’ home, Clarke closed her eyes and fell asleep, her head on the brunette’s shoulder.


	11. Chapter 11

When she opened her eyes, Anya needed a few seconds to remember where she was and why she was in a cage. After over 24 hours stuck next to the two hybrids still strapped to the tables, she had fallen into an uneasy sleep. According to her watch, the sun had already risen, and the vampires had yet to come back to the room. The hunter could see that Bellamy and Jasper were awake, silently conversing. She wanted to join in on the discussion and hear about what she hoped was their plan to get out, but their jailers could be lurking around, listening in. All she could do was pray that, if the two men managed to escape, they wouldn’t leave her behind to die. The vampires hadn’t shown her much interest so far, as the hybrids’ blood was a lot more valuable to them than a hunter, but she knew her time would probably be up soon, and she didn’t have a clue on how to free herself.

About an hour later, Jasper started to moan, louder and louder, until the ruckus attracted one of their guards, who approached to check upon him. The pale man didn’t have time to walk around the table Bellamy was on that the tall hybrid had broken the strap holding his right arm and plunged his hand into the guard’s chest, ripping out his heart. Before the ashy body could fall on the ground, the wolf reached his belt and removed the set of keys. Luckily for all of them, the keys opened the straps and the cage Anya was in, and in less than a minute the three companions were free. In a mine full of vampires.

“Come on,” Bellamy whispered before opening the door, looking right and left to confirm that the path was clear.

Unsure where to go, the hybrids decided to follow the distant sound of water, in hopes that they would be able to exit through an underground river of a sort. They had walked for about five minutes when an alarm started to blare, alerting them that their escape had been discovered. Jasper, in his wolf form, barreled into a group of vampires that threatened to attack them from behind, while Bellamy grabbed Anya’s arm and pulled her forward with him. They ran at full speed for a couple of minutes, getting closer to the water sound, but more and more vampires were chasing them. Estimating that they were near an exit and that no one was coming from upfront, the hybrid turned around, his canines extending.

“Run, Anya. I’ll hold them off.”

“What about you and Jasper? I can’t just leave you behind, I can fight too,” the hunter protested.

“There are too many of them. They need us alive; you have time to return with the rest of the pack and save us. But if they capture you, they’ll kill you. Now go!”

The blonde tried to resist, but the curly-haired man turned into a strong light grey wolf and ran back to where they had come from, and she had no choice but to continue, not wanting the hybrids’ sacrifice to go to waste. She kept jogging down the tunnel, the air becoming less and less stuffy. She could hear steps behind her, and assumed that Bellamy had eventually been captured. Hoping the man would be OK until she could come back with reinforcements, she forced herself to accelerate.

After what seemed like an eternity, she finally reached the end of the tunnel, and she paused at the adit just in time to stop herself from falling. The mine had apparently been built in a mountain, and the opening Anya found herself at was overlooking the forest, 30 to 40 feet above a river. The hunter looked around for a path, stairs, a way to climb down without breaking all the bones in her body, but found none. If the vampires used this exit at all, they had to simply jump down, unafraid of gravity. Unfortunately for her, the blonde had to take these trivial laws of physics into account, and without any way to know how deep the river was, the fall could very well kill her. On the other hand, going back was out of the question, as the vampires would definitely be pissed by now. At best, they would break her neck quickly, but based on what she had seen of them so far, Anya wouldn’t bet on a merciful death. And she refused to give up, not without seeing Lexa again, and murdering Titus if he was still around.

She was still pondering how to escape Mount Weather when a voice made itself heard, alerting her of the presence of the vampires, “There she is! Kill her!”

The blonde didn’t have time to react that a sharp pain erupted from her side, making her tumble over the edge. The fall was over before she realized it, and the freezing water surrounded her in an instant, suffocating her. She had been lucky, the river at that spot was deep enough that she hadn’t broken anything, but the current was unforgivingly throwing her against the rocks emerging here and there and branches floating around, and between that and her injury, she couldn’t swim. All she managed to do was lift part of her body onto a large piece of wood before she passed out, exhausted.

*****

Raven and the rest of the pack had been looking for Bellamy, Jasper, and Anya for almost a day. At first, they had thought that they were with Clarke helping her get Lexa back, but ever since the brunette and the Argents had returned the day before, the hybrids realized that the blonde hunter and their friends were missing. Once they had recovered from the shock of seeing the gigantic hunter carry Clarke like a baby into the house, Raven and Monty went to Lexa’s home and found out that Anya hadn’t been back ever since she left Grounders. Considering the fact that they couldn’t contact Bellamy or Jasper telepathically, they were forced to accept the truth, someone had taken their friends. Again.

Leaving Clarke to rest under the protection of Lexa and the hunters — the irony hadn’t escaped any of them — the pack had spread all around Polis, looking for tracks, a scent, anything. That was how Raven had come to be in the part of the woods she was in, almost 100 km away from the house, tracking a faint scent of pine and honey. Anya.

The dark-haired hybrid couldn’t explain how she had known, but her instincts had been true, the hunter was nearby. She was running around in her wolf form, her snout sniffing the air at regular intervals, when she heard a soft moan. Less than a minute later, she found the woman she had been looking for sprawled on the river bank, barely breathing. The hunter’s hair, blonder at the end, was covering half of her pale face, and Raven gently licked her to try to wake her up. She was bleeding from several wounds, probably the result of her journey down the river, although the most concerning injury was a spike protruding from her left side. The wolf realized at that moment that Anya was dying, and she wouldn’t make it to a hospital in time. Returning to her human form, Raven cradled the blonde’s face as gently as she could, and pulled the spike out.

“I’m so sorry _mi amor_ , I wish there was another option, but I can’t let you die when I just found you. Please don’t be too mad when you wake up,” she whispered to the lifeless woman.

And with that, she let the wolf take over. Her canines extended, her eyes turned a more vibrant shade of brown, and she bit into Anya’s wrist. After informing the rest of her pack that she had found the blonde hunter, alone in the woods, and that they would be returning as soon as possible, Raven spent the next couple of hours lying beside her lover in a small cave she had found, waiting for the transformation to be complete. Her wounds had stopped bleeding almost immediately, but it still took Anya a long time to open her eyes again, and when she did, she groaned in pain.

“What—Raven? What happened? How did I—why is everything so bright, and loud?”

“Shh, you’re OK, An. Close your eyes, and focus on my voice.”

The blonde took a minute to comply and follow Raven’s advice. The dark-haired woman couldn’t remember her own transition much, but she had seen Clarke help some new wolves over the years, and she knew the best way to proceed.

“I need you to focus on one sense at a time. Can you do that? Let’s start with your hearing. Instead of the mushy background, try to decompose all the sounds. My voice, the river near us, the wind in the trees. Do you hear it all?”

“I can hear the river. The trees. Some birds around us...”

“Good. That’s great. Now let’s do the same with your nose. What do you smell?”

“Hmm... the grass, the trees, some spices I don’t know the name of, flowers—it’s weird though, I can smell you most of all, like you overpower everything else. Is that a wolf thing?”

“ _Sí_ ,” Raven answered, a grin on her face. “I’ll explain that part later. Now focus on your taste. Anything?”

“I need to brush my teeth; it’s been way too long,” the blonde said with a grimace.

“That’s fine, we’ll go home soon. Tell me, what do you feel now?”

“The rocky ground below me, the caress of the wind on my face and hands, your hand on my shoulder...”

“Good. Now open your eyes, _preciosa_. What do you see?”

“You,” Anya replied, before pulling Raven by the shirt and crashing their lips together. She wasn’t quite sure what was happening to her, but all her senses being heightened weren’t the only change. All she could hear and smell was the tan-skinned woman kneeling next to her, and she _needed_ to have her closer, to feel her. Before she could stop herself to let her brain catch up, she had ripped what was left of her T-shirt off and removed Raven’s top as well. She was lying on top of the brunette, kissing her harder than she had ever had, the moans coming from the mouth under her painfully turning her on. Out of control, she went to bite the tantalizing neck when Raven interrupted her, catching her face with both hands.

“Anya, stop!” she growled, eyes shining. “This is not the time, nor the place. You have to calm down and regain control. You can do it; you are one of the most disciplined people I know.”

Anya pushed herself back and stayed over the hybrid’s body, on all four, trying to slow her heartbeat. Breathing deeply turned out to be a mistake, as Raven’s smell nearly drove her over the edge again, but gritting her teeth, she managed to rein herself back.

“You turned me into a wolf, didn’t you?” she asked, confusion clear on her face but, to Raven’s relief, she didn’t seem angry.

“Yes,” Raven sighed. “I’m sorry An, I didn’t want to do it without your consent, but you were dying. It was the only way I could save you.”

“OK. I—I really can’t deal with it right now. You were right, we need to leave, we’re not safe here,” the blonde started, before suddenly asking, “How about Lexa? Have you guys found her?”

“She’s fine. Clarke and the Argents found her. They are all at our house now.”

“Gustus and Indra are at your house?” Despite the situation, the surprise on Anya’s face made Raven chuckle.

“Yes, we were quite surprised too when they arrived. Anyway, time to go home. The first time we turn, it takes a while and it’s painful so it’s better if you just jump on my back for now, OK?”

The blonde nodded and waited for Raven to revert to her furry form before climbing on her and gently holding onto the fur on her neck. She had seen Lexa do it before, but she had never ridden on the hybrid’s back herself, and when the wolf took off, she could stop a surprised squeak from escaping. She could have sworn she felt Raven laugh under her, but at least the wolf couldn’t see the pink on her cheeks.

When they reached Polis, about two hours later, Anya was positively exhausted, not to mention cold because of her minimal clothing, and starving. She hadn’t eaten anything for 48 hours, and the recent transformation was taking a toll on her body. She couldn’t wait to pass out on Raven’s bed but first, she had to let the pack know about the vampires at Mount Weather, and the sacrifice Bellamy and Jasper had made to help her escape.

Wolf Jasper

Wolf Bellamy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mi amor (Sp.) = my love  
> preciosa (Sp.) = gorgeous  
> Sí (Sp.) = yes


	12. Chapter 12

By the time Raven and Anya made it back to the hybrids’ house, Lexa was pacing the corridor. The rest of the pack had been back for a couple of hours, and the brunette was worried about the state her sister must have been in for them to take so much longer to return. Raven hadn’t given the others any details, just that she had found the hunter and that they would come back as soon as they could. Which was why, when the front door opened, she was extremely surprised to see Anya in perfect health, albeit missing her T-shirt and looking tired, on Raven’s back. Clarke had mentioned to her one day that they had an agreement with a coven of local witches who, in exchange for the hybrids’ protection, cast a spell on them allowing them to run around mostly invisible to human eyes when they wanted to be. That explained why no one had reported seeing huge wolves in Polis over the previous few years.

Letting Raven transform and fetch a top for Anya, the Woods sisters hugged for a few minutes, each glad to see that the other was OK. Clarke approached to welcome the hunter and ask about her pack mates when she stopped dead in her tracks, staring incredulously at Anya before turning to face her friend who had just returned into the room.

“Raven, what did you do?”

“What I had to,” the Latina sighed. “She was dying, Clarke. I couldn’t just stand by.”

“What are you talking about?” Lexa inquired, confused. She had never seen Clarke so annoyed before, and couldn’t figure out what the dark-haired hybrid could have done that was so bad. Looking at her sister more closely, she suddenly noticed the metallic reflection in her dark brown eyes, and the strength that seemed to emanate from the lean body.

“Oh my God!” the teenager exclaimed, “you’re a werewolf.”

“Yeah,” Anya muttered, before clearing her throat. “It’s OK, Squid. I’m still me, you know?”

“Maybe we should all sit in the living room,” Harper intervened after Lexa nodded quietly, “Looks like we have a lot of things to discuss. But first, I have to ask, Squid?”

“I often watch documentaries on Netflix, especially the ones on the abyss and sea creatures,” Lexa replied with an eye roll, “Anya has been teasing me about it for years.”

Chuckling briefly, the hybrids, the new wolf, and the three hunters sat on the sofa and various chairs and took turns explaining what had happened. Lexa began by telling them how Titus had used her to lure Clarke in and injure her with his grenades. At the mention that he had been the one responsible for their parents’ death, Indra and Gustus were been beyond shocked and disgusted, and Anya let out a roar of rage that had made the house tremble. She even asked Clarke if they could have their witch friends resurrect him just so she could kill him all over again, and the blonde hybrid almost agreed, thinking that she would love to give him a piece of her mind too.

After that, it was Anya’s turn to recount how she, Bellamy, and Jasper had been drugged, kidnapped, and brought to the lair of the vampires, in Mount Weather. They had to take a short break after she explained how they were using the hybrids for their blood, keeping them alive and draining them for years, so the pack could calm down. Raven especially had been distraught to finally learn what had happened to her former mate, and the blonde wolf had hugged her without even thinking about her loved ones’ reaction. Lexa had simply raised an eyebrow at the development but offered no comment. Gustus and Indra, however, looked like they were still trying to process the fact that their daughter, at least in their mind if not officially, was now a werewolf, and seeing her clearly involved with a hybrid didn’t help appease their fears.

Once they were able to resume the conversation, Anya recounted how she had managed to escape thanks to Bellamy and Jasper, and had fallen into the river. Raven finished the story by explaining that she had found the dirty-blond haired woman on the shore, half-dead, and had turned her to save her life. To Lexa’s surprise, her sister seemed pretty OK with the change. She assumed that it was because she would have died otherwise, but she couldn’t help to think that Anya recently spending a lot of time with the hybrids, and particularly Raven based on the way they interacted, had mitigated her opinion on the supernatural creatures. She could only hope that their aunt and uncle would accept the new her. They were looking a little green at the moment.

By the time the conversation ended, it was already mid-afternoon, and most of them were pretty tired. Clarke had nearly completely recovered but she could still use a nap, Lexa too, and Anya seemed like she was about to drop. They agreed to take a break for a couple of hours so those who needed it could lie down, and to reconvene for dinner. Gustus and Indra were shown to one of the guest rooms, while Anya followed Raven into hers and Lexa curled herself against Clarke, falling asleep in mere minutes on the blonde’s mattress, extremely comfortable despite being placed directly on the floor. The hybrids, tired of spending money in bed frames that broke now and then when they slept in their wolf form, had given them up altogether.

Lexa was awoken a few hours later by some crashing noise and groans of pain. Clarke in tow, she had a look in the corridor and realized that the sounds were escaping from Raven’s bedroom. Before she could reach the handle, though, it burst open and a golden-brown wolf jumped out, howling proudly and loud enough that the rest of the house’s occupants came looking for the source of the ruckus.

“Anya?” Lexa stuttered, eyes like saucers.

“That stubborn idiot owes me a door,” Raven grumbled. “I told her that the first transformation is painful, so she wanted to practice before we go fight the vamps. But, _por supuesto_ , she couldn’t wait until we made it to the forest. She _had_ to do it in my room.” 

The golden wolf huffed before playfully nudging the Latina’s shoulder in the way of an apology, purring when the woman rolled her eyes and started to scratch her chin.

“You make a beautiful wolf, An,” Lexa said with a smile, trying to normalize the interaction.

Noticing the conflicted looks on the Argents’ faces, Anya whimpered, her eyes pleading. She might be proud to a fault as a human, but the young woman wouldn’t lose the only parental figures she had left, not without a fight.

“It—it’s going to take some getting used to,” Gustus started carefully.

“We are both glad that you are alive, Anya,” his wife added, reassuring the sisters. “So many things have changed recently, we just need a bit of time, that’s all.”

Once the excitement had died down and the new wolf had returned to her human form, the pack and hunters began to think of ways to take the vampires down once and for all. Thanks to the information provided by Anya, they knew where to find them and that the hybrids would probably be kept in the same room as before.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t estimate how many vampires and reapers they would face. They were looking for a way to gain the upper hand when Indra chimed in, placing a small round device on the table. Before leaving the factory, she had retrieved what had remained of Titus’s grenades. Clarke and Lexa shivered at the view of the thing that had nearly killed the blonde, but they had to admit that they could be useful. Raven offered to have a look and see if she could replicate them, without injuring the hybrids. While the dark-haired woman locked herself up in her workshop, Clarke decided to have a chat with the former hunter, and took her aside while Lexa was catching up with her relatives.

“How are you doing Anya? Is there anything I or the others can do to help you get used to your new situation?”

“I’m OK, thanks, Clarke. I mean, it was scary at first, the way my senses suddenly reacted, and how much stronger I am. But I’m not bothered by the fact that I’m now a sup, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”

“How come, if you don’t mind me asking?” the hybrid inquired, surprised the former hunter was taking it so well.

The taller blonde shrugged. “Maybe because I’ve spent a lot of time with all of you recently? If it had happened to me last year, I’d have freaked out. But now, I guess I know that being a wolf doesn’t necessarily equal being bad, or not having a somewhat normal life. At least as normal as I’d have had as a hunter anyway.”

“Besides,” she added as an afterthought, “if I’m being completely honest, I thought about it before. Since there’s a big chance that Lexa will choose to be turned eventually, I had to consider what I wanted to do too, you know?”

The hybrid nodded, clearly relieved that Anya was taking the change so well. On a more selfish note, she was hoping that seeing her older sister easily adapt to her new life would help Lexa make her decision.

“Can I ask you a question, though?” the wolf said, waiting for the hybrid to look at her again before she continued. “Raven’s smell is very strong for me. It’s like it covers all the other smells, they fade in the background. Is it because she is my sire?”

Clarke tried to school her features, but the look of surprise and concern on her face wasn’t missed by the other blonde, confirming her suspicions.

“She’s my soulmate, isn’t she?”

“That’s something you should probably discuss with Raven,” Clarke carefully answered, scolding herself interiorly for her reaction.

Sighing, the former hunter left the room and walked towards her lover’s workshop, unsure how to start the conversation. Thankfully for her, Raven broached the subject when Anya joined her, and they talked at length about what it meant for them and their relationship. The dark-haired woman had had an inkling of their possible connection, which was one of the reasons why she hadn’t been able to let Anya die without trying everything in her power to save her. Both admitted that they wanted things to be serious, but they agreed to wait before mating, though, which would give Anya time to get used to her new abilities first. Besides, the situation with the vampires of Mount Weather was a priority, they didn’t have time to lock themselves in a bedroom for a few days.

On the other side of the house, Clarke was making sure that Lexa was handling the recent events. The brunette tried to put on a brave face at first, but she eventually let herself cry in the hybrid’s arms, all the emotions she had bottled up during the previous 48 hours resurfacing at once.

After wiping her eyes and blowing her nose, she lay back down onto the bed, looking at the blonde. With a slightly shaking hand, she drew the round face's contours. The flat forehead, the temple, the dome of the cheek, the lips. Clarke remained immobile, content to let the teenager explore and set the limits. When long fingers started playing with the baby hair at the back of her neck, she couldn’t stop a small moan from escaping. Lexa, encouraged by the reaction she had elicited, brought their lips together in a kiss. It stayed chaste for a few minutes, their mouths moving against one another in a slow rhythm, until Lexa’s tongue swiped over the blonde’s lower lip, demanding entrance. When Clarke let her in and the pink muscles met, Lexa whimpered, her whole body flaring up.

Before she could question herself, the brunette rolled them and landed on top of her companion, one hand lost in blond hair and the other on the bed for support. They kissed heatedly, exploring each other’s mouth, tongues battling and groans escaping from time to time, until Lexa began subconsciously to grind on her companion, seeking some relief, the hybrid holding her hips tightly. With a growl, Clarke rolled them over in a second, pinning the brunette to the bed. The blonde’s eyes had taken the metallic hue characteristic of her kind, and her canines had extended.

“Lexa, we have to stop, before I do something I’ll regret,” she apologized, her voice husky and breathing labored.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize—,” the teenager murmured, her face reddening and dejection visible in her darkened eyes.

“I want you, my love. Please do not ever think otherwise, it would be ludicrous. But you deserved to be courted properly, I do not wish to rush things,” the hybrid explained gently, one of her hands caressing the girl’s face before pecking her lips. “Furthermore, our soulmate connection makes it more difficult for me to resist the urges. I wanted to bite you right now, to make you my mate, more than anything I have ever desired, and it would not be a good idea to do it before you are ready.” 

“OK, I understand. Sorry for letting things get out of hand. I have never felt so attracted to someone,” Lexa confessed with a blush, “I guess it’s hard for me to control myself when I’m near you too.”

The blonde grinned before bringing their lips together once again. Both of them aware of their respective predicament, they didn’t let things heat up this time, happy to simply kiss and caress each other’s faces. When Lexa stifled a yawn, Clarke lay down beside her, an arm hooked around the slim waist, and the two women fell into a dreamless sleep.

Wolf Anya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> por supuesto (Sp.) = of course


	13. Chapter 13

Raven spent four days pretty much nonstop in her lab, only coming out to eat and make sure Anya hadn’t destroyed her bedroom yet, before she felt confident enough in her design to gather everyone in the living room. The Argents and the Woods sisters had stayed in the hybrids’ house, aware that the reapers and vampires might be lurking around Polis, and now that most of the pack, summoned by their blonde sire, had arrived, there were barely enough rooms for all of them. They were all doing their best to support Echo and Maya, Bellamy’s and Jasper’s respective mates, reminding them that as long as the bites on their necks weren’t burning like Hell, the two men were alive. Anya had been awkward around them at first, embarrassed to have made it out of the mine while the hybrids had stayed behind to protect her, but Maya rapidly reassured the blonde that they didn’t blame her at all for what had happened.

As Clarke had explained to her four guests, her pack was rarely assembled in one place. There were about 25 hybrids in total, and though the ones Lexa had met so far tended to remain together, most of the others liked to travel around. Since some of them had disappeared over the previous 100 years, kidnapped by the vampires of Mount Weather, none of them stayed alone anymore. But the majority of the packmates lived on different continents, keeping an eye on the supernatural population. That was how Lexa learned that Monroe, for example, had actually been in Canada the year before, and moved back to join her soccer team. She was trying to get used to the new faces, despite her natural shyness, and felt relieved that none of the hybrids seemed put off by her presence. In fact, they all treated her warmly and with a hint of deference, knowing that she was destined to be their sire’s mate.

The Argents, on the other hand, weren’t at ease once in the company of all the hybrids, some of whom had lost friends to Gustus’s ancestors. A couple by the name of Murphy and Emori, who had both been captured and tortured by hunters while they were still werewolves had been particularly virulent against Gustus and Indra’s stay at the house. They only calmed down after hearing how the Argents had killed one of their own to save Clarke, but even then, they refused to acknowledge the hunters and avoided being in the same room as them. Anya and Lexa, torn between their family ties and new loyalties, did their best, with Clarke and Raven’s help, to make everyone comfortable and remind them all that they were on the same side, united against the vampires.

On the evening of the fourth day, Raven told everybody to gather in the living room. Once the 17 hybrids, the blonde werewolf, the 2 hunters, and the hunter in training had sat, she carefully placed a device the size of a shoebox on the coffee table. As it turned out, she had been forced to give up Titus’s design and create one of her own. The bald man’s grenades had been filled with extremely concentrated wolfsbane and holy water, and even after removing the former, the second component was still too harmful to the hybrids to be useful in a fight; it would injure them too, making it rather counterproductive. So instead, the dark-haired genius had opted for UV grenades, filled with argon. The shock wave created by the detonation would heat the gas to a very high temperature, making it incandescent and emitting an ultraviolet radiation intense enough to kill vampires in the vicinity. As the hybrids were not bothered by the sunlight, the explosions would be completely harmless to them.

With the new bombs in mind, the pack and their guests started devising a plan to take down Mount Weather once and for all. They couldn’t use the devices before freeing Bellamy and Jasper, or they would risk the remaining vampires gorging on them to be safe from the UV explosions for a few hours. This meant that they had to create a diversion, have someone infiltrate the mine and free the two prisoners. As the only person who had been inside, Anya volunteered for the job, despite Lexa and the Argents’ protestations that, as a werewolf, and a new one at that, she wasn’t as strong as the hybrids, making the blonde defiantly growl.

Another issue they faced was the possibility of some vampires escaping through secret exits. The Argents had found old blueprints of the mine, but they couldn’t be certain that its occupants hadn’t forced their familiars to excavate other tunnels in recent years. Attacking during the day would maximize their chances of trapping all their enemies inside, but some hybrids would have to remain spread out around Mount Weather to make sure no one escaped.

The last thing they had had to consider was the reapers, as they didn’t know how many they would face. The hunters had volunteered all their equipment, including several nets and silver bullets, but all knew that the battle would be brutal.

On the evening of the eighth day following Anya’s escape, the pack was ready to attack. Raven had managed to create a few small bombs as well as one very large one that, if correctly placed at the center of the mine, would be able to kill most of the vampires there. They had one last night to rest, get prepared, say their goodbyes, and in the early hours of the morning, they would run towards the mine in their wolf form. Convincing Gustus and Indra to let themselves be carried had been an awkward conversation, but they had eventually agreed that the bulky man would be with Lincoln and Indra, much lighter, with Octavia. But the hardest part happened when Lexa declared that she wanted to accompany them.

“Absolutely not,” Gustus, Indra, Anya, and Clarke screamed at the same time, before looking at each other with both surprise and gratitude. The blonde hybrid had been worried the hunters would want Lexa to participate, and they had clearly expected her to try to bring her soulmate. But their love for the teenager was stronger than any sense of duty they all had.

“I’m not gonna be the only one staying behind,” Lexa frowned. “My whole family is going. How can you expect me not to join you?”

“Lex, you have amazing natural abilities,” Anya conceded, “but you are not fully trained yet. We’re going to face an unknown number of vampires and reapers. I saw one, and it almost killed me. I’d be dead if Lincoln and Raven hadn’t shown up. No way I’ll let you anywhere near them!”

“Don’t worry Little One, we’ll take care of each other,” Gustus tried to reassure her.

“And we will all make sure they remain safe and come back to you, I swear it, _meine Geliebte_ ,” Clarke intervened, taking the brunette’s hand. “But I will not be able to focus on the battle if you go with us, I will be too worried and distracted. Please, stay here where you will be safe.”

“I’m not a child anymore,” Lexa screamed, before leaving the room and slamming Clarke’s door, her emotions heightened by the emergence of the hunter side in her. She let herself fall face-first onto the bed; the pillow muffling her cries of frustration. Why couldn’t they all understand how she felt? how cruel it would be to leave her alone while they all went to war?

The 17-year-old didn’t hear the door open, but she sensed the mattress sag and a hand run down her back, lighter than a feather.

“Lexa, please talk to me. I am sorry that you are not happy about the whole situation, but it is the safest solution.”

“I know,” the brunette groaned, turning around the face — her girlfriend? the word soulmate was still scaring her — Clarke who was looking at her with concern. “But you’re all treating me like a helpless child. How can I stay here, not knowing if you’re safe? I already lost my parents, I can’t lose them, or you. It’d kill me.” By then, tears were pooling in the emerald eyes, and Lexa was doing everything she could to hold them in.

“I understand my love,” the blonde replied, caressing the girl’s arm up and down. “But can you accept that we feel the same way about you? Your sister, your aunt, and your uncle cannot bring you unprepared in a situation where you could get hurt, or worse. You are my soulmate; it would break me if you died. _Bitte_ , for all our sake, you have to stay here. I need my whole pack, we cannot spare someone to remain with you, so this is the only place where you will be protected.”

Lexa sighed and let herself fall back on the bed; her hair spread all over the pillow. She wasn’t stupid, despite her training with Anya and the Argents, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to face supernatural creatures yet, and that frustrated her to no end.

Finding a sudden resolve, she took the hybrid’s hand and kissed it gently before pulling the woman on top of her and connecting their lips. She started slowly, fingers lost in blond locks, enjoying Clarke’s weight on her anchoring her. When she felt a hand roam down her body, narrowly avoiding the swell of her breasts, she suckled on Clarke’s bottom lip, eliciting a moan. Their tongues met, again and again, the kisses growing hotter. Lexa let one of her hands follow the blonde’s spine, all the way down until she could knead her lower curves, making her companion gasp and jerk her hips forward. Thanks to their similar heights, their bodies were perfectly aligned, and the feeling of Clarke’s breasts rubbing against hers was making Lexa whimper so much she would have been embarrassed if her brain hadn’t been so foggy with the heat pooling between her legs. When the other woman released her kiss-swollen lips to trace a wet path down her neck, Lexa turned her head to the side to give her more access, and gently pulled at the blonde's hair.

“Do it,” she pleaded. “Make me a werewolf.”

The whine that followed her request was so soft, so broken that her heart jumped out of her chest. The warm mouth opened hesitantly, but instead of the canines Lexa had expected, she felt the tender skin of her neck being sucked in. It wasn’t really painful, but she knew that she would sport a bruise the following morning, a reminder of the blonde while she would be away. When Clarke released her, disappointment and relief were competing in her mind, tearing her apart.

“I cannot. Not like this,” Clarke whispered at the girl lying supine. “Not out of desperation or so you can go to war. When I bite you, it will be an act of love.”

“I’m sorry,” Lexa replied, ashamed of herself.

The blonde shook her head, her smile letting the brunette know that she was already forgiven, before getting out of bed and turning into her wolf. At least it would spare them the temptation, and the younger girl tended to get cold at night when she wasn’t hugging the soft blonde fur. Content, the two women fell asleep, enjoying the last few hours they had together before the fight began.

The following morning, the pack and the hunters were ready to move, the hybrids in their wolf form, leaving the Argents to carry the light bombs and equipment. Before Lexa could apologize to them for her outburst of the previous evening, Gustus engulfed her into a big hug that squeezed the breath out of her. She valiantly tried to hold off her tears, but when Indra caressed her back gently, promising that they would keep each other safe, a sniffle or two pierced the silence. When the brunette finally extricated herself from the strong, tattooed arms and moved to embrace her sister, the golden wolf rolled her eyes and, in an attempt to lighten the mood, licked her face from chin to forehead, earning a big “Eww” from a disgusted teenager and a chuckle from the rest of the group.

At last, it was time for the fighters to leave. Lexa and Clarke had already said their goodbyes in private, with soft kisses and promises whispered into the rising sun, and when the door closed, leaving the brunette alone in the house, she let herself break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> meine Geliebte (Ger.) = my love  
> bitte (Ger.) = please


	14. Chapter 14

The pack ran the 100 km separating Polis from the vampires’ den without pausing, two scouts making sure no reapers would surprise them. When the group arrived near the mine, they hid in a cave and Clarke turned back into her human form for the sake of Anya and the Argents who couldn’t communicate telepathically.

“Let’s go over the plan one last time,” she announced. “Mel, John, Wells, Fox, Miller, Bryan, Indra, and Gustus will patrol around for reapers and make sure no vampires escape. The rest of us will attack the main entrance and engage as many vampires and reapers as possible to clear the way for Anya and Raven, who will infiltrate the mine through the exit overlooking the river. We have 15 small UV bombs, and one main one that needs to be put at the center of the mountain to reach its maximal efficiency. Does anyone have any questions?”

The golden wolf yapped her approval, and her gray companion nodded quietly. They had the riskiest role to play, walking blindly into the heart of their enemies’ fortress to free the two hybrids before the vampires could bleed them dry. After one last look at the Argents, the two soulmates left the group and headed towards the river that had nearly become Anya’s tomb.

They carefully trotted along its bank, on alert for any move in the bushes around them. After a few minutes, Raven nudged her companion’s shoulder and used her snout to point at the barely visible opening on the side of the mountain, 30 feet above them. As they had expected, the slope was practically vertical, with very few grips, making it impossible for a werewolf to climb. Taking a big breath, the two hybrids started turning back into their human form. Anya had spent the previous eight days training with Lincoln and transforming back and forth, and yet it was still an extremely painful process, where most of the bones in her body broke and mended themselves. Raven finished before her, the perks of being a centuries-old hybrid, and kneeled next to the half-human shape, encouraging her with gentle words. Once both women were standing on their two feet, the blonde climbed onto Raven’s back, wrapping her long legs around the slim waist of her lover, and the Latina began her ascension.

*****

Clarke led the bulk of her pack towards the main adit, not bothering to hide anymore. In fact, they made as much noise as possible when they blasted through the planks covering the entrance, to draw the vampires out. The blonde wolf, spearheading the attack, let out a loud howl before jumping at the throat of the first man who approached, tearing his head away from his body. She saw Echo next to her, in her human form, a rotten heart in her hand and the vampire it had belonged to turning into dust at her feet. The fight was over as quickly as it had begun. In less than two minutes, nothing remained of the group that had been close to the entry.

 _Let’s keep on moving_ , Clarke told her pack mates. _We need to attract as many as possible here. And remember my friends, we cannot use the UV bombs until Raven confirms that Bellamy and Jasper are safe!_

*****

Indra and Gustus were hidden in bushes, not far from the entrance. The six hybrids had decided to patrol around for reapers and possible escapees, and had tasked the hunters to guard the rest of the pack’s backs. Despite their inferior strength, the silver bullets and silver nets they had brought would be enough to put a reaper down, as long as they could keep their distance. The Argents were aware that the hybrids were trusting them with this important mission, while keeping them away from the fight.

Gustus especially was having more and more difficulties reconciling what he had been taught his whole life with the events of the previous year. His family had always believed supernatural creatures to be nothing more than a curse on the world, preying upon the humans, and it was their sacred mission to eliminate them. And yet, the hybrids behaved entirely differently from what he had expected. Apart from their first encounter with Anya and Lexa, they had done nothing other than protecting the two girls he adored, without any kind of reward. Not only had Clarke nearly died for Lexa, but two members of the pack had remained behind, knowing the terrible fate that awaited them, to save Anya. Anya, his beloved niece, practically a daughter in the burly man’s eyes, who was now a werewolf too.

A nearby cry snapped the hunter back into the present, and with a nod to his wife, he crept out of the bush and stealthily walked towards the part of the forest where the sound had come from, rifle in hands. By the time he reached a small clearing, it was too late. A hybrid was lying on the ground, her eyes blankly facing at the sky she couldn’t see anymore. Fox, if Gustus correctly remembered the name of the girl with long brown hair who he had only met a few days before. She had been attacked by three reapers, and though the various wounds they were displaying showed that the brunette hadn’t gone down without a fight, they had managed to overpower her, tearing her limbs apart. They had slashed her abdomen so deeply that some of her entrails were clearly visible, and the man was forced to breathe through his nose a few times to swallow back down the bile that had escaped from his stomach.

When the hunter noticed the reapers beginning to eat their victim, his blood boiled in his veins, and without measuring the potential risks for his own life, he fired at the nearest monster, hitting him square in the head. The other two growled and ran towards the man, dodging the silver bullets coming from his rifle. Before Gustus could reload, he saw the two wild wolves pounce on him and braced himself.

*****

Inside the mine, Anya and Raven were taking advantage of the state of confusion to make their way down the tunnels. Raven was back in her wolf form, snout in the air in an attempt to detect the vampires that might be coming their way, while Anya, still on her two legs, was doing her best to remember the path she had taken during her escape. Luckily for them, the distraction provided by Clarke and the others seemed to be working, as they hadn’t encountered a single enemy since they had stepped inside the mountain.

After several long minutes, the blonde wolf recognized the spot where Bellamy had left her and told her to run, and indicated the way to her companion. After a few turns, they reached a door guarded by two vampires. The first one dropped, a wooden arrow deeply embedded in his heart, before they could realize they weren’t alone anymore. The second one managed to avoid the shot that came from the small crossbow carried by the blonde, but there was nothing he could do when Raven jumped on him, her jaws circling his neck, and she broke it before ripping the head off the body. They hadn’t finished turning to dust that Anya had opened the door that separated them from the lab.

To her relief, there were no other guards inside, only the dark-skinned vampire — Lorelei, Anya remembered — standing over the two hybrids who were still tied to the examination tables and looked like they had taken a beating, or 20. The woman stared at the intruders with a look of surprise and anger before she ran towards the door, but Raven was faster. She leaped onto the evil scientist’s back and bit into her shoulder, immobilizing her, before mauling her with unexpected ferocity. Only once the vampire had stopped moving or whimpering did Raven release the bleeding shoulder. Turning back into her human form in a few seconds, she grabbed a stake from Anya and plunged it into the woman’s back, all the way into her rotten heart. The blonde hadn’t moved during the whole scene, understanding what it meant to Raven to exact her revenge on the woman who had bled her past lover for years till he died. When the Latina started sobbing, however, she pulled her against her chest, strong arms circling the shaking back, and rubbed the long black hair, as if to say, “It’s OK, it’s over, and I won’t judge you.”

The two soulmates took a minute to compose themselves before they approached the tables. Their friends were still alive, but they had been injured. Bellamy sported several cuts, his lack of regeneration telling them that his body had been through hell. Jasper looked paler than usual, probably a result of the draining he had been submitted to, and Anya carefully extracted the needles inserted in his veins.

 _Clarke_ , Raven thought, _we got Bell and Jasper._ _They are alive. It’s safe to use the bombs now. MAKE THEM PAY!_

*****

_Clarke._ _We got Bell and Jasper. They are alive. It’s safe to use the bombs now. MAKE THEM PAY!_

Clarke growled to her companions to attract their attention, and nodded, letting them all know it was time to move to the second part of their plan, and the hybrids who were in their human form armed themselves with the small UV bombs prepared by Raven. The group still hadn’t encountered any reapers, but the vampires had flocked towards the entrance once the attack had been reported, and the hybrids had already been fighting for several minutes. Their strength and regeneration abilities gave them an edge, but they were outnumbered, and some pack members were bleeding or limping. It was time to push back.

A couple of detonation echoed when Echo and Atom threw their grenades, and all the inhabitants of Mount Weather close enough to the explosions burst into flames. The vampires that remained, far enough that the shadows and natural asperities had protected them, stayed agape for a few seconds before fleeing the scene, spreading through the three tunnels leading to the entrance.

 _Come on_ , Clarke ordered, _we cannot let them reach the others. Split into three groups. Monty, Lincoln, and O, you are with me._

The Asian man nodded and followed the blonde down the central path, the larger bomb carefully stored in his backpack, the two other wolves surrounding him. They made their way forward, moving deeper and deeper into the mountain. The further down they were, the more Clarke grew concerned at the absence of reapers. She wasn’t surprised that the vampires hadn’t let them roam freely around the mine, but she had expected to fight some of them by then. And yet, since they hadn’t seen any, she could only assume that the wild wolves were mostly patrolling around the mountain, which meant that the Argents and the six hybrids who had remained outside could face the most dangerous opponent of the two.

Sadly, her concerns proved to be justified a few minutes later when she felt a sharp pain inside her head, the one she had learned to associate with the loss of one of her pack mates. One of her hybrids had been killed. Pushing her tears back down for the time being, the blonde wolf howled in anger and ran forward, decided to tear apart all the vampires that would find themselves in her way.


	15. Chapter 15

Raven and Anya had debated what to do once they found their captured friends for a long time during the days that had preceded the attack on the mine. They had considered barricading themselves into the lab until the rest of the group could come and get them, but the risk of being overflown by vampires looking for the precious hybrid blood that would protect them from the UV grenades once the pack started using them was too high. With only two operational fighters, Bellamy and Jasper being too weak to be of much help, they had to flee through the tunnels they had come from.

The Latina pulled Jasper on her back, securing his limp arms around her neck, while Anya did the same with the curly-haired man, and they finally exited the room that had seen so many horrors over the previous decades. Trying not to shake the injured men, the two soulmates strode lower into the mountain once more, following the discreet signs they had left on their way in. Just before they reached a fork, a small group of vampires, male and female, appeared in front of them. Anya raised her arm that was equipped with the crossbow, but before she could take a shot, Raven had thrown a grenade, with an enthusiastic, “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker” that made the blonde snort and roll her eyes. Now that the path was free, the two women hurried up towards their exit.

There came Anya’s least favorite part of the plan. She had wanted to bring ropes so they could rappel down the mountain’s side — like normal people — but they didn’t have a lot of space in the small bag Raven had used to carry the grenades. Furthermore, she couldn’t remember seeing any trees or asperities they could anchor them to. So, in the end, they had opted for the faster solution: jump into the river. Rationally, the blonde knew that it was deep enough, she had survived it the first time. And now that she was a werewolf, and not suffering from an injury, it would be much easier to swim and exit the water. Yet, the trauma of her previous escape wasn’t completely out of her mind, and she found herself hesitating once they reached the opening. Her dark-haired companion had to have sent her struggle, because she sat Jasper against the wall, and did the same with Bellamy before taking Anya’s hands in hers.

“You are OK, _preciosa_ ,” she whispered, staring at the deep brown eyes, “I will be right there. You can do it, An.”

The blonde wolf gritted her teeth, willing herself to push past her fear, and she placed Bellamy’s arm around her shoulders, holding the man up so they could jump together. Before she could, though, Raven grabbed the side of her face and kissed her deeply, ignoring the male hybrid’s groan.

“ _Te amo_ , my brave warrior,” she said once their mouths disconnected, earning a smile from the now much more relaxed werewolf, before she slapped a muscular butt cheek and grinned, “Now go!”

And the blonde, still dazed by the unexpected declaration, jumped and let gravity do its job.

*****

Indra had watched her husband leave with apprehension. She knew that he was one of the best hunters that had ever lived, much stronger than her thanks to his natural abilities, but the reapers were ferocious beasts without a once of mercy. Despite her feelings, she had remained behind, protecting the entrance of the mine and the pack’s back as planned. But when she heard a series of gunshots, which could only mean Gustus was in danger, she found herself running in his direction before she even realized she had moved.

Her eyes widened at the scene that greeted her in the clearing. Gustus was crouching, his rifle still fuming in his hands, a deep gash oozing blood on his left shoulder. A reaper lay in the middle of the space, a bullet hole visible between his dark eyes, next to the mangled body of a female hybrid. The two remaining reapers that had attacked her husband were dead, their throats torn apart, while two male hybrids were licking their wounds and the blood on their snouts.

“Gus, _tu es blessé ?_ ” she shouted, before kneeling next to the man and hugging him carefully.

The male hunter reassured her that his injury, though painful, wasn’t deadly, and turned towards the two wolves to thank them for saving his life. He had thought his time was up when the reapers had jumped on him, but at the last second, their bodies had collided with the two mates, Miller and Bryan. A short fight had followed, but thanks to the few silver bullets he had left and the superior strength of the hybrids, victory had been swift.

They knew they would have to return for their friend’s body, but the priority at that moment was to make sure no other reapers could surprise the rest of the pack, and the Argents resumed their position in the bush, trembling as the adrenaline was wearing off, while Miller and Bryan continued to scan the forest for threats.

*****

Clarke and her three companions had been walking for about 10 minutes down the pitch-black tunnels when they arrived in a much larger cave. It was difficult to say if it had been created while the mine was still in activity or if it had been enlarged afterward, but the vampires had made it their nest. The group was facing over 100 of them, of all ages, most of them with a look of fear on their pale faces. When the blonde hybrid noticed an older man approached, she guessed from Anya’s description that he was their leader, and she let herself transform into her human form after signaling Monty to prepare the bomb.

“Clarke, I presume?” he began, his voice strong despite the circumstances. “I am Dante Wallace. These are my people.”

“I know who you are,” Clarke growled. “You have been kidnapping my pack mates for decades, draining them of their blood. Not to mention all the werewolves you turned into crazed monsters to do your bidding.”

“I see. I assume the little blonde hunter survived her trip down the river then?”

At Clarke’s silent nod, he continued.

“Then you must understand why we are doing this. We found rather accidentally that your blood can help us withstand the sunlight. We are so close to a permanent solution. Can you imagine, being cursed to the darkness for all eternity? You would do the same.”

“No, I would not. I know the vampire curse, the man I consider like my second father has been a vampire longer than I have been alive. But you cannot change what is already dead. No matter how many times you try, you will never be hybrids. All you have done is kill my people for nothing, and now your time is up.”

Before her enemies could react, Clarke grabbed the UV bomb Monty had been arming discreetly, covered by Lincoln and Octavia’s massive bodies, and threw it in the middle of the room. It exploded as soon as it touched the ground, emitting a light so bright that the hybrids had to close their eyes. Though she couldn’t see them, Clarke knew that she would never forget, no matter how many millennia she would live, the heat generated by the combusting vampires or the screams that echoed around the chamber when they all burned. When she opened her eyes, she was greeted by piles and piles of dust, scorch marks visible on the walls, and she had to fight back her nausea.

“Come on,” she told her companions, “let’s find the others.”

They walked back to the entrance of the mine in silence, all of them lost in their own thoughts. They had won the war, and none of their pack mates would ever be taken again by the literal bloodsuckers, but the loss of lives still felt like a waste to the blonde. The vampires might have become her enemies when they started their terrible experiences, but Clarke still considered all supernatural creatures like part of her family, some distant cousins of a sort. Killing over a hundred of them in a day, some probably fairly new and inexperienced, weighed heavily on her conscience, no matter how justified it was.

 _Clarke_ , she suddenly heard Murphy’s voice at the back of her head, _we need you. Quick! It’s Atom_.

Following the directions sent telepathically by her friend, the hybrid ran through tunnels she hadn’t explored yet, until she arrived at a larger one where a battle had clearly taken place. Several bodies of reapers were lying around, as well as the remains of one vampire. Emori and Murphy were both in their human form, drenched in dark blood, their numerous injuries slowly closing.

“What happened?” she asked while kneeling near Atom, flat on his back, his body covered in deep lacerations and bite marks.

“We ran into a vampire trying to escape. The sleazy looking one, with semi-long hair and dark eyes, I think Anya called him Cage?” Emori explained, her voice strained. “Anyway, when he saw us, he blew into some kind of whistle, and those reapers jumped on us. We got him with the grenade we had left, but that didn’t stop them; I’m not even sure they realized their master was dead.”

“Emori and I used our blood to heal each other,” her mate intervened, “but it’s not working on him. His wounds are too deep, Clarke, I don’t know what to do.”

That is because there is nothing to do, the blonde thought grimly. Atom’s wounds weren’t healing by themselves because they were too severe, even a hybrid’s body could only sustain so much before it started shutting down. And without a soulmate, or even a mate to drink from, if the one of a packmate wasn’t enough, they died.

Clarke felt her eyes water at the sight of the young man, her friend for over 200 years, drowning slowly in his own blood. When a hand pressed on her shoulder, it took her a few seconds to notice and lift her head. To her surprise, Indra was the one behind her, most of the pack standing a few steps away, having disposed of the rest of the reapers. The dark-skinned woman, a pained look on her face, unshed a silver knife from her belt, and silently held it, the guard facing the blonde. Clarke took it with a mouthed “Thank you” and cradled the man’s head. Remembering a lullaby from her childhood, she began to sing, caressing his hair.

“Weißt du, wie viel Sternlein stehen  
an dem blauen Himmelszelt?  
Weißt du, wie viel Wolken gehen  
weithin über alle Welt?  
Gott der Herr hat sie gezählet,  
dass ihm auch nicht eines fehlet  
an der ganzen großen Zahl,  
an der ganzen großen Zahl.”

In a quick gesture, she stabbed the dark-haired hybrid in the heart, ending his suffering at last.

The return home was a quiet affair. The hybrids had stopped to recover Fox’s body in the forest and burn it, along with Atom’s. Later, they would celebrate the end of the reapers and the vampire threat. But at that moment, they mourned the loss of their friends and licked their wounds.

When they entered their house in Polis, Lexa all but threw herself at Anya and the Argents, hugging them for several minutes. Only after that did she notice the somber mood and sad faces, leading Raven to recount the events of the day, how they had won but that the price had been heavy. The young brunette waited for her family and the hybrids to retire for a well-deserved rest before making her way to the blonde, who had disappeared into her room as soon as she had crossed the house threshold.

“Hey,” she whispered, spotting her girlfriend on her bed, staring at the ceiling, “I heard about what happened. How are you?”

Clarke remained quiet for several minutes, her blue eyes shining with unshed tears, until Lexa sat next to her and took one of her hands.

“I could not protect them. Fox and Atom. I turned them, they were my family, and I failed them.” The tears were now freely rolling down the round face, the hybrid too broken to care.

“Clarke, you didn’t fail anyone. You went to war, you fought and you won. Atom and Fox knew what they were doing, and they died bravely. That’s not on you.”

“I killed them all Lexa,” the blonde cried. “I hated them, and they deserved it, but still. I killed all of them, even the young ones. I threw a bomb in the middle of them and listened to them burn, because they were a threat. Am I really any better than those monsters?”

“Love, listen to me,” Lexa enunciated, lying on the bed before gently bringing the blonde’s head on her shoulder and caressing her hair, not even noticing the endearment word that had escaped her lips, “you did what you had to do to protect your pack, your family. Monty, Raven, Lincoln ... me. You made the right choice.”

Not hearing any answer from Clarke for a few minutes, the brunette thought she had already dozed off when a quiet, sleepy “ _Ich liebe dich_ ” brought happy tears to her eyes. The following morning, she would tell her girlfriend that she had started to learn German in secret. The following morning. At that moment, she hugged the woman sleeping against her side a little tighter, and murmured a tender, “ _Ich liebe dich auch_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> preciosa (Sp.) = gorgeous  
> Te amo (Sp.) = I love you  
> Gus, tu es blessé ? (Fr.) = Gus, are you hurt?  
> Ich liebe dich (auch) (Ger.) = I love you (too)
> 
> Song : Weißt du wieviel Sternlein stehen? by Johann Wilhelm Hey  
> Weißt du, wie viel Sternlein stehen  
> an dem blauen Himmelszelt?  
> Weißt du, wie viel Wolken gehen  
> weithin über alle Welt?  
> Gott der Herr hat sie gezählet,  
> dass ihm auch nicht eines fehlet  
> an der ganzen großen Zahl,  
> an der ganzen großen Zahl.
> 
> Do you know how many little stars there are  
> In the wide blue sky?  
> Do you know how many clouds  
> There are over the whole wide world?  
> The Lord God counted them so well,  
> That none are missing  
> From the whole big lot of them,  
> From the whole big lot of them.


	16. Chapter 16

The next months were quiet in Polis, much to everyone’s relief. Gustus and Indra had eventually returned to D.C., making the girls promise to contact them regularly. Most of the hybrids, after recovering from their injuries and mourned the loss of their two friends, had also chosen to leave. The house was big, but with 15 pack mates, plus Anya and Lexa that had pretty much moved in, there were definitely not enough bathrooms, or cartons of milk for that matter. After one too many arguments that made Lexa feel like she was living with 16 siblings, Clarke had called in an informal meeting, and the hybrids had decided where they wanted to go next, leaving only Clarke, Raven, Lincoln, Octavia, Monty, and Harper in Polis. After their traumatic experience, Bellamy, Jasper, and their respective mates opted to spend some time away from Polis and the bad memories associated with it. Monroe, mourning her good friend Fox, didn’t sign up for another season at the soccer club and chose to go back to Canada instead. Harper and Monty, however, remained there to allow the woman to keep an eye on Lexa during her senior year.

Snow started to fall a few days before Christmas, and Lexa enjoyed the strolls into the forest with Clarke, all wrapped into a warm coat. They would walk for hours, the brunette on the wolf’s back, whose large paws quietly sank into the white layer covering the ground. Most animals had retreated into their dens, either hibernating or hiding from the cold, leaving the forest unusually silent and empty. Raven and Anya would occasionally accompany them, the blonde taking to her new form surprisingly quickly. She spent hours on end with her soulmate, hunting, running, and learning all that it meant to be a wolf. The full moon was the hardest time, as she would feel restless and irritable, but the pack made sure to help her ride them out far away from humans.

As per tradition, the Woods sisters traveled to D.C. for the holidays. They couldn’t believe that it had already been a year since the disastrous Christmas of 2017 where Titus had angered them with his hateful spiel. Twelve months later, things couldn’t be any more different. Lexa was officially dating a hybrid, Anya was a werewolf and in love, and the Argents were supportive of both relationships, having witnessed firsthand how much the pack cared for their nieces.

Christmas Eve dinner and the gift exchange the following day went without a hitch, yet Lexa could feel that her sister was getting more and more nervous. She tried to make her talk several times, but it was only on December 29th during lunch that the blonde finally opened up, and blurted, “Raven and I have decided to mate.”

The news wasn’t that much of a surprise, the three of them had expected the two soulmates to eventually complete their bond. Yet, the delivery could have used some work, seen as Gustus choked on a potato for a good minute, Indra dropped her fork, and Lexa almost spit a mouthful of Coke, groaning in pain when the gas went through her nose. The brunette was the fastest to recover, and congratulated her sister with a smile. Anya was looking at them one by one, her chin held high, as if preparing for a challenge. Only Lexa could tell that, despite her proud attitude, her sibling was nervous. She was bouncing her knee under the table and clenching her fists, waiting for a reaction.

“We’re happy for you, Anya,” Gustus finally managed to say once he had swallowed the murderous potato, “Raven is a very lucky girl.”

“Are you—are you OK with it?” the blonde stuttered, taken aback by his comment. She knew that her uncle and aunt were getting along with the hybrids much better than previously, but it was still a permanent decision full of consequences, and she hadn’t been convinced they would be supportive.

“Anya, you know we love you like a daughter. Both of you,” Indra added, staring at Anya and then Lexa. “We are so proud of the wonderful young woman you’ve become. All we want is for you to be happy, with someone who treats you well. The rest is just details.”

Despite her best efforts, Lexa couldn’t hold her tears back when she heard her sister sob openly at the declaration of love from their parental figures. She couldn’t remember seeing Anya cry a single time since the death of their parents, too busy as she had been raising the brunette and training as a hunter to avenge them. But that day, in the Argents’ house, the strong woman wept in the arms of her aunt, grateful she wouldn’t lose any more relatives to outdated prejudice. And on a more selfish note, Lexa was hopeful that they would prove to be as supportive once she would decide to mate with Clarke.

A week later, the sisters were back in Polis and reunited with their soulmates. The 17-year-old should have seen the awkwardness coming, but she was still confused at first when Anya asked her if she could stay at the hybrids’ house for a few days.

“Why?” she inquired naively.

“Well, because... Hmm, just—“

“Because we’re gonna have sex. Lots and lots of sex. It kinda comes with the mating territory,” Raven interrupted them bluntly, making the brunette turn bright red and Anya sigh at her partner’s lack of tact.

“Raven!” Clarke chastised, not wanting her girlfriend to be scarred for life, before facing the younger girl. “I am sorry. I swear, she gets worse with each passing century. You are welcome to stay here, of course.”

In the end, Lexa didn’t even need to return to the house and fetch clothes, as a suspiciously large part of her closet already seemed to have taken up residence in Clarke’s room. The blonde, always mindful of their boundaries, offered her a guest room for the duration of her stay, but the brunette pointed out that they had shared a bed on countless occasions, and that she trusted the hybrid. The two of them had let things progress slightly in terms of intimacy, with hands lost under clothes and heavy making-out sessions in different states of near nakedness, but they had agreed to wait before going all the way. Lexa was nervous, knowing that Clarke had had numerous lovers over the centuries, and feared she wouldn’t measure up. The blonde had reassured her that she was more than happy to wait, and that considering the level of arousal she reached every time they simply kissed, giving her pleasure wouldn’t be an issue, but the brunette wasn’t quite there yet. For the moment, she was content to go on dates with her wonderful girlfriend, and to fall asleep spooning her.

A few days later, when the newly mated pair returned, they were both proudly sporting a bite at the junction of the neck and shoulder, and the house’s inhabitants teased them enthusiastically about their heart eyes and cuteness.

“So, Anya,” Clarke eventually asked, “have you decided if you are ready to become a hybrid?”

“Yes,” the lean blonde replied without faltering, “I have. I’ve gotten the hang of being a wolf, I’m ready. Plus, I don’t want to put Raven through the pain of losing her mate.”

“Very well. Did she explain to you how we proceed?”

“Yes.”

Lexa got intrigued at that last part. She had never seen a werewolf being turned into a hybrid, and no one had explained it to her so far. All she knew was that it involved Clarke’s blood, as she was the original hybrid, and that it could be done to a werewolf, but not to a vampire.

“Lex,” her sister called, “maybe you should go out for a while. You don’t need to see this.”

“I’m not leaving you, An,” she replied, shaking her head. “Besides, shouldn’t I know about it too? Since I’m going to go through the same thing one day.”

The hybrids looked at each other, slightly uncomfortable, but eventually, Clarke and Anya relented, knowing that they couldn’t shelter her forever, and told her to stay in a corner. Lincoln and Octavia moved to stand near Raven, and Clarke took place right next to Anya.

“Are you ready Anya?” she asked, before biting into her own wrist at the nod the former hunter gave her. Once the dark blood started dripping, she raised her arm towards the other blonde’s mouth, and let her drink some of the precious liquid, not taking offense to the tall woman’s grimace.

After a moment, Clarke pulled her arm back, slid behind Anya, and, just like that, broke her neck.

“What the fuck!” Lexa shouted before her sister’s body could even reach the floor. She would have jumped forward if the terrifying growl coming from her left hadn’t made her lose her momentum. Turning her head, she spotted Raven, eyes as black as the night, canines protruding, and face half transformed into a wolf. The woman, enraged, was trying to throw herself at Clarke, and it took all of Lincoln and Octavia’s strength to hold her back long enough for her to calm down and utter a contrite, “I’m fine. I’m OK. _En serio_.”

Distracted as she had been by Raven’s reaction, Lexa didn’t notice Clarke get closer to her until the blonde took her hand gently.

“It’s fine, my love,” she whispered to her while caressing her knuckles, “I’m sorry you had to see this, but it’s a normal part of the process. A werewolf has to die first so that my blood can transform them. When she wakes up, Anya will be a hybrid. Maybe we should have explained it to you before proceeding.”

“No,” Lexa sighed, returning the caress, “it was better that way. I don’t think I could have let you kill her if I had known, even though it’s only temporary. Based on Raven’s reaction, it’s not something you can really prepare yourself for, no matter what.”

“Indeed,” the blonde chuckled, looking affectionally at her friends. “This was something we learned the hard way. You should have seen the black eye Octavia gave me when I turned Lincoln. I swear, if I weren’t a hybrid, it would still show.”

The young brunette was grateful for the distraction, and laughed heartily when the petite woman grumbled, “You shouldn’t have killed my mate in front of me then,” before winking at the blonde with a smirk. And yet, she felt uneasy when Raven lifted Anya’s lifeless body bridal style and carried her into their room. Her soulmate explained that the process usually took some time, and that her sister would awake by evening, but these were still among the longest hours of her life.

When Anya finally appeared in the living room, Lexa crashed into her lean body, relieved to see her sister alive again. She hadn’t realized it, but witnessing another member of her family lying dead had reopened some old wounds, and she needed to feel the new hybrid’s heartbeat under her skin.

“Hey, Squid,” the tall blonde hugged her with a smile. “I’m here, it’s OK.”

“How are you feeling An? Is it different?”

“It’s quite similar to being a werewolf actually,” the older woman shrugged, “except that I feel even stronger and faster. The weird part is the voices inside my head. Raven showed me how to communicate telepathically, and it’s going to take some getting used to.”

“I can’t wait for the first time you’re going to send naughty thoughts to the wrong person,” Octavia teased her. “Don’t worry, it happened to all of us at least once. That’s how you learn. You should have heard Bell’s growl when Lincoln accidentally told him what he wanted to do to me one evening, instead of sending those images to me. I thought he was going to emasculate him there and then.”

Lexa grimaced at the pictures that formed in her head. Yeah, she was gay, really, definitely, unquestionably gay. And she could only hope that Anya would have learned to master her new ability by the time she would become a hybrid herself, as there are images she couldn’t imagine living with for eternity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> En serio (Sp.) = Seriously, really


	17. Chapter 17

Spring arrived faster than anyone had expected, and Lexa’s last year of high school was coming to an end. She celebrated her 18th birthday with the pack, enjoying various delicacies and Monty’s singing, before Clarke took her out for dinner in the nicest restaurant in the area. During dessert, when the blonde produced a jewelry box out of her bag, the brunette nearly choked on her crème brûlée thinking she was going to propose there and then. To her relief — and slight disappointment, though she tried not to ponder too much about what that meant — the box contained a magnificent brooch set with an emerald the exact color of her eyes in the sunlight. The hybrid swore that she hadn’t ruined herself purchasing it, and that it was “an old trinket”, but Lexa had a feeling a piece as beautiful as this might have belonged to a queen of the past. That evening also saw them exchange their first official “I love you”, before Lexa confessed about learning German and hearing Clarke’s sleepy declaration back in August.

Between school, soccer, and university applications, the brunette couldn’t spend as much time as she wanted with the pack during the week. She and Anya were still officially living in their house, but on weekends they tended to stay over at the hybrids’ place. After discussing it with her sister and the Argents, Lexa decided to apply to Polis University, as well as other schools nearby. The law undergraduate program in Polis was very good, and the brunette didn’t want to move too far from Anya, her soulmate, and her new adoptive family. Between her excellent grades and soccer, she was hoping for a scholarship, although Clarke assured her that paying for her tuition wouldn’t be a problem. As it turned out, after centuries of investing and selling her art under various pseudonyms, the blonde was extremely wealthy.

“You know,” Clarke told her one day while she was filling in her applications in the hybrid’s bedroom, “I could go to university with you if you want. It wouldn’t be the first time. We could even be roommates; it shouldn’t be too complicated to find out who is responsible for the room attributions and compel them.”

Lexa didn’t reply right away, taking a moment to consider the possibility of living with her girlfriend full-time. As exciting as it sounded, she didn’t want to fall into the U-Haul cliché or jump the gun. Her hesitation seemed to have transpired, because the blonde eventually added, “It’s OK if you don’t want to, love. I would never force you; you know that.”

Clarke might have tried to hide the pain in her voice, but Lexa heard it nonetheless, and she cursed herself for hurting her girlfriend once again. Their relationship had progressed remarkably well so far, thanks to the blonde’s patience and Lexa’s calm attitude, and yet even soulmates weren’t impervious to miscommunication and disagreements from time to time. And the 15 centuries separating them certainly didn’t help either in moments like this. Biting her lower lip, the brunette sat on her girlfriend’s lap.

“Clarke, look at me. _Bitte_.”

“That’s not fair,” the hybrid rolled her eyes, “you know I can’t resist when you speak German to me.”

“I know,” the girl smirked, “why do you think I keep doing it?”

“I’m sorry,” she added almost immediately, not wanting to make fun of the blonde just after hurting her feelings. “I would love to live with you eventually, it’s just that—it’s a bit too soon? I mean, most 18-year-old people don’t move in with their boyfriends or girlfriends. Going to university is a big change, I’m gonna be busy, possibly irritable, what if we keep fighting because of the stress and you end up hating me?”

Clarke chuckled as the brunette straddling her was getting more and more nervous over a hypothetical situation.

“I could never hate you, Lex. But yes, I understand your point. This is a pivotal period of your life where you have to figure out the adult you want to become. It is not fair of me to stand in the way.”

“You are not standing in the way of anything,” Lexa sighed, lifting the round chin with her hand so green eyes could stare at sapphire ones. “You’re always supporting me. It’s actually frustrating how perfect you are, it makes me feel like I’m the one messing up all the time.”

When she saw the blonde about to interrupt her, the brunette kissed her lightly, before continuing. “What I meant to say is, thank you. For the way you treat me. There is no one else I would rather be with, OK?”

The hybrid nodded slightly before running her hands on the muscular thighs, enjoying the way Lexa shuddered under her fingers. If the brunette didn’t want to lose the thread of her explanation, she would have to finish it fast.

“If I get a scholarship, I’ll probably have to stay on campus for the first two years. Why don’t I use that time to experience the life of a normal student, and then we can move in together at the start of my junior year?”

“I would love that,” Clarke replied with a smile, all tension forgotten.

“OK,” Lexa grinned, before bringing their lips together in a kiss meant to be tender and apologizing. What she hadn’t anticipated was for the hybrid to purr immediately in pleasure, causing her to whimper and move her fingers into the blond locks. She adored Clarke’s hair, always so soft and shiny, as was her fur. Lexa couldn’t sleep next to the wolf without caressing it endlessly.

Clarke’s hands tightened on her thighs as the kiss deepened, the hybrid trying to rein her passion without being able to completely stop herself. They had gotten better at figuring out their respective limits, but now and then their making out sessions would grow heated until one of them broke it out, panting and flustered. This time, however, neither of them seemed to want to stop. When the older woman’s hands began to caress the skin under her T-shirt, Lexa breathed out an urgent, “Take it off.” To her credit, the hybrid managed to remove the garment without tearing it apart, despite her first instinct, before applying light kisses on the upper part of the breasts clad in a black sports bra. Her hands settled on the younger woman’s lower back, softly massaging the muscles there, until one of them crept back to the front, all the way to a nipple visible through the cotton. She rolled the nub between her index and thumb, savoring the moan her action elicited.

By then, Lexa was already rolling her hips up and down, the zipper of her jeans providing delicious friction against her clit, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Slowing down, she pulled the blonde’s top over her shoulders and head and threw it behind her, her mouth following the path from the right ear, to the neck, and down to a pale clavicle, and back up. If she had learned anything by now, it was that Clarke loved it when she nipped at her throat, so Lexa spent several minutes licking the column of the woman’s neck, gently biting it, leaving marks that disappeared almost immediately. For the first time, she wished she could bite through the skin and put a mark there for all to see, and the intensity of it shocked her.

“Are you OK my love?” she heard the hybrid ask, having picked up on the sudden tension in her body. Rather than saying out loud what she wasn’t ready to admit yet, the brunette held Clarke’s neck with her left hand, keeping them face to face, and moved her right down to a supple breast. It wasn’t the first time she held one of the soft, heavy globes in her hands, but the feeling was always wonderful. That day, however, she felt more adventurous than usual, and after a minute of kneading at it without touching the skin, she inched her hand towards the clasp.

“Can I take it off?” she whispered, swallowing thickly at the prospect of seeing the blonde topless.

“You can do whatever you want, beautiful,” the raspy answer came, making her smile and encouraging her to remove the offending piece of clothes. Lexa hadn’t even realized she was licking her lips at the sight of Clarke’s breasts, bigger than her own and adorned with two stiff pink nipples, until the hybrid chuckled.

“Someone is a boob girl.”

Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to deny something so painfully obvious, the brunette shrugged and pushed the blonde back until they were both lying down, Lexa on top. Despite her fears, the girl brought her mouth down, leaving a trail of kisses and goosebumps in her way, until she could lick and suckle on an erect nub.

“Oh! _Hör nicht auf!_ ”

The brunette was still learning how to say what her favorite color was in German — _himmelblau_ , like the hybrid’s eyes — so the sentence Clarke breathed out while holding her head was a bit lost in translation, but she understood the gist of it and continued her ministrations. She could feel the blonde’s hot skin under her, warmer than a regular human, and suddenly she wanted to touch more, to see more. Encouraged by Clarke’s whimpers and light hip rolls, Lexa lowered her hand to the blonde’s waistband, toying with the button of her pants.

“I wanna feel your skin,” she admitted when blue eyes looked at her with curiosity.

It had been the right thing to say, as the hybrid whimpered before rolling them over. Lexa hadn’t even had time to blink that she was on her back, Clarke hovering above her, left in only a pair of dark panties.

“May I take yours off too?” the blonde asked, her mouth dropping featherlike kisses all over her girlfriend’s ear.

The brunette nodded in response, and while Clarke was rolling her pants down the tan legs, much slower than she had done for herself, Lexa inhaled deeply and removed her bra. The two women were now left in their underwear, hearts hammering in naked chests, signs of their arousal visible in their blown pupils and wet garments. Torn between her need to explore further and her nervousness, Lexa wasn’t moving anymore, apart from the hand that was caressing her girlfriend’s arm. The blonde, sensing her hesitation, lowered herself gently and pecked her on the lips.

“Do you wish to stop?”

“No. Please don’t. I just—I’m a little nervous.”

Understanding washed over Clarke’s face as she took the time to stare deep into the younger woman’s eyes, assessing the desire in them. Rather than making a move towards their last pieces of clothes, she let her body blanket Lexa’s, their flushed chests grazing, their centers pressing against each other’s thigh. The brunette trembled from head to toe but she didn’t try to push her away, on the contrary, she wrapped her leg around the blonde’s and locked her arms behind her back, pulling them closer together.

The blonde kept moving above her for a few minutes, thighs grinding faster and faster against soaked underwear, whimpers and gasps echoing around the room. Lexa could feel the heat pooling at the base of her spine, the pressure not quite enough but still bringing her closer and closer to the edge. Unsure what was missing, she couldn’t stop canting her hips and opened her mouth to beg Clarke to — she didn’t know what, do something — when she felt a poke against her neck. There, that was the thing she had been needing without being able to formulate it. Without a second thought, she moved her head to the side, allowing Clarke better access, and grabbed the blond locks with her right hand, pulling the hot mouth even closer. When sharp fangs pierced her skin, the intensity of her orgasm made her black out so fast she barely had time to cry or feel the hybrid shudder against her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bitte (Ger.) = please / you’re welcome  
> Hör nicht auf! (Ger.) = Don’t stop!  
> himmelblau = sky-blue


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a couple more fluffy chapters coming before shit hits the fan (again)

Standing nervously in front of her mirror, Lexa was finishing applying her eyeliner. Her gown, a gift from Clarke, complimented her silhouette and revealed a little more cleavage than she was used to. The bottle green, a few shades darker than her eyes, made her skin look tanner, and her hair, currently wrapped over her left shoulder, more chocolate than chestnut. After deciding to forsake the traditional high-heels — unused to them as she was, she would probably break her ankle before the end of the event — she had been lucky enough to find beautiful pumps that went well with the dress. The brooch Clarke had offered her on her birthday was shining proudly on her chest.

“You look astonishing,” Anya whispered, having entered her room quietly to check up on her. “Need any help?”

“I’m good, thanks An.”

“We are waiting for you downstairs when you’re ready. Clarke should be here any minute now.”

Lexa nodded in response, and waited for her sister to exit the room before she let out a deep exhalation. Compared to everything else that had happened to her during the last two years, she knew that she had no reason to be nervous that night, and yet her heart seemed decided to hammer out of her chest. Inhaling through her nose, she double-checked that the tiny scar on her throat was concealed, and made her way downstairs.

When the brunette had regained consciousness shortly after the first time they had made love, Clarke had apologized over and over for biting her. As they eventually discovered, the hybrid couldn't refrain from asserting some claim over her soulmate when they were being intimate. Thankfully, she managed every time to keep enough control to use her vampire fangs instead of her canines, which prevented Lexa’s transformation into a werewolf before she was ready. The two of them had progressed from grinding to naked touches and later penetration; Clarke making sure every step of the way that the brunette was comfortable with their pace and taking her virginity with all the tenderness in the world and tears in her cerulean eyes. If the younger woman managed not to black out anymore from the combination of her orgasms and the bites, she could swear she was seeing stars every time, which made the blonde blush proudly and assure her the feeling was mutual.

Smiling at the thought of seeing her lover soon, Lexa reached the bottom of the stairs, where Anya and Raven were waiting for her, beaming.

“Wow, you clean up nice Baby Woods,” the Latina teased her, earning an eye roll from both sisters.

“Thanks, Rae.”

Ever since Raven had mated with her sibling, Lexa had made extra efforts to get to know the tan-skinned woman. She had to admit, under her bluntness and cocky attitude, she was perfect for Anya. She had witnessed the tender way the two snarky women looked at each other, and Raven was the only one, apart from herself, who could make her sister’s softer side come out. Her only demand faced with the new arrangement had been that the crazy inventor stayed clear of their appliances, especially after the Toaster 3000 debacle that had nearly seen their house go up in flame.

A quiet knock broke Lexa out of her reverie, and Anya looked at her before indicating the door with her chin, “Looks like your ride is here, Squid.”

The brunette took a few breaths to still her nerves, and opened the door. On the other side, the sight of Clarke left her speechless for a minute. Her soulmate had refused to let her know if she would wear a dress or a suit, only promising that they would match, and match they did. Clarke had opted for a sleeveless light blue dress that hugged her curves in all the right places and made her eyes appear darker than usual. Desperately trying not to stare at the skin and cleavage on display, Lexa cleared her throat a few times before uttering, “ _Tu es superbe,_ Clarke.”

“ _Merci_ my love, you look ravishing yourself,” the beaming blonde replied. “May I come in?”

“Oh yes, of course,” Lexa stuttered, shaking her head to regain her composure before leading her lover into the living room where Anya and Raven were waiting for them.

After the traditional pictures and the customary threats from Anya to hunt Clarke down if she didn’t bring Lexa back before her curfew, the two soulmates exited the house and stepped into the limousine rented by the hybrid. Lincoln had gracefully agreed to serve as their driver for the evening, and the three of them headed for Lexa’s high school.

“Are you nervous?”

“Not really,” Lexa shrugged. “It’s just prom, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s more everything around it, I guess. The end of the year, the fact that I’ll start university soon, those kinds of things.”

“You have nothing to worry about love, you will do brilliantly. Polis University will be lucky to have you. Besides, Harper will be there with you if you need anything, and I won’t be far.”

“I know, I’m glad we’ll be roommates, she’s cool,” the 18-year-old replied, smiling at the blonde. “Are you excited about the dance?”

“Quite, yes. It has been a long time since I have been to a ball.”

“Oh, yes, hmm, I forgot about that. You know, the music and dances might have changed a bit since your time. If you’re not comfortable, we can always leave and go elsewhere, I won’t mind.”

“Lexa,” the hybrid answered with a teasing glint in her eyes. “I am old, but I am not a dinosaur. Raven, Octavia, and I have gone to clubs more than once. I am well aware of how you ‘young people’ like to ‘shake your booties’.”

“You spend too much time with Raven,” Lexa grimaced before chuckling and adding with a wink, “but now I’m looking forward to seeing you ‘shake your booty’.”

After Lincoln had dropped them off at the school, the two lovers entered the building hand in hand and found the main hall where the dance was taking place. As it happened, Lexa had nothing to fear, Clarke was an excellent dancer. Not that there was anything that she couldn’t do, but the blonde managed to seamlessly pass for a human, making Lexa’s friends laugh and her teachers beam with pride.

“I love you,” the brunette whispered in her ear while they were slow dancing, the party coming to an end.

“I love you too,” the blonde easily replied, before kissing her gently.

“Was Anya really serious about her threats? I was kinda hoping we could stay together tonight,” Lexa admitted with a blush.

“Don’t worry, she was mostly joking. Raven promised to distract her, so you are welcome to spend the night at our house.”

Lexa couldn’t help but internally grimace at the thought of the kind of “distraction” that Raven would offer her sister, but she was grateful to her nonetheless. Anya had eventually guessed that her relationship with Clarke had become more intimate, and once the brunette promised that she was fine with that development, they agreed not to talk about their respective sex lives anymore. Taking into account Anya’s superior hearing, they had also implicitly decided to limit their activities to the hybrids’ house, where the bedrooms were more soundproof than at their old house.

When Lexa’s prom officially concluded, the two soulmates wished the girl’s friends goodnight, and thanks to Lincoln, they drove back to Clarke’s place. Out of respect for the muscular man in front, they kept the PDA to a minimum, at least as long as they were in the car. Once back into Clarke’s room, the two women were finally free to kiss as heatedly as they had wanted to all night. The beautiful gowns returned into the blonde’s wardrobe, and the soulmates fell into bed, exploring each other's body again and again.

The following morning, the brunette woke up deliciously sore, her neck and chest sporting several bite marks. Clarke began to apologize for marking her all over, but the younger woman silenced her with a kiss, before making her way to the en-suite bathroom. When she returned, the hybrid tapped the spot next to her on the bed before asking the brunette to close her eyes, and she stood up.

“Not that I’m vetoing the kinky stuff forever, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that,” Lexa teased, her green orbs remaining close.

“Do not worry love, it is not that kind of surprise. I will remember your comment, though,” the blonde smirked, before putting a piece of paper into her lover’s hands.

When Lexa opened her eyes and looked at it, it took her a few seconds to figure out what was happening.

“Plane tickets? For England?”

“Yes,” Clarke answered, clearly excited. “I would like to show you Europe this summer, if you want. England is only the first stop; I planned a whole itinerary with several countries and cities.”

“Clarke, that’s—that’s amazing,” the brunette stuttered, her jaw hanging in surprise. “That’s too much, I’m sure it cost a fortune. Not to mention the hotels and—”

“Lexa, it’s fine. Truly. Please do not worry about the financial aspect, I am more than happy to cover it all. You only need to get a passport, as Anya told me that you do not have one yet.”

“Anya is OK with us traveling this summer? Just the two of us?”

“Yes. I cleared it up with her, and she did not have any objection, as long as I keep you safe, of course,” Clarke confirmed, before adding with a smirk, “You are an adult now anyway, and good news, you will be allowed to drink alcohol in Europe.”

At loss for words, Lexa carefully put the tickets on the side of the bed before wrapping her arms around her girlfriend’s neck, and kissing her all over her beautiful face. She would have tried to kiss every inch of her skin if the blonde hadn’t reluctantly stopped her, reminding the younger woman that they were supposed to have lunch at her house with Anya and Raven, earning a groan in response.

The lunch was a nice, quiet affair, and Lexa was very grateful to Raven for not commenting on the obvious love bites on her neck. There was only so much concealer can do, and she was pretty sure her sister didn’t want to think about how she had gotten them. Once they were done, Clarke and Raven volunteered to wash the dishes and clean up, and Anya took Lexa aside, looking nervous.

“Squid, I need to talk to you about something.”

“You and Raven are getting married?”

“What??” Anya shouted, before regaining her composure. “No, it’s not—I mean, one day maybe, but that not what I was going to say. I wanted to talk about this house.”

Faced with her little sister’s careful silence, the blonde continued, “You are going to stay on campus for the first two years, and then I assume you plan to live with Clarke, right?”

Lexa nodded before finally finding her voice again. “And you want to move in with Raven?”

“Yes. I mean, we both spend most of our time there anyway, it doesn’t make much sense to have two houses if neither of us is going to be in this one. Might as well sell it and invest the money, or use it for your expenses.”

The brunette didn’t know how to answer. Logically, it was the most practical option. Why double the utility bills and various expenses when they could move in with their respective soulmates? But this house had also been her home after their parents’ death, her sanctuary. It was full of memories of the previous eight years; Anya learning to cook, Lexa’s height measurements on one of the door frames, her first night with Clarke sleeping over...

“Hey,” Anya called her attention by placing a hand on her shoulder and squeezing it, “it’s OK, Lex. We don’t have to decide right away. I just wanted to let you know. We can talk about it more when you come back from your trip.”

“Thank you,” the girl replied, grateful for her sister’s understanding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tu es superbe, Clarke (Fr.) = you look amazing  
> Merci (Fr.) = thank you


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me missing traveling and living vicariously through my characters...
> 
> Stay safe!

Once Lexa’s graduation was over and she was officially done with high school, she and Clarke left Polis for a four-week trip to Europe. The brunette hugged her sister tightly and promised to Facetime with her regularly, and to send plenty of pictures. Apart from the mating time with Raven, it was the first time since their parents’ death that the siblings were separated for more than two days, and the goodbyes weren’t as easy as one would have expected.

Since they would have to board from D.C. in the early afternoon, Clarke and Lexa stopped by the Argents for lunch. The conversation was pleasant, the two semi-retired hunters making sure to include the blonde in the discussion and to ask her more about her past and her pack. Neither of them would have believed it two years before, but the couple was now delighted to spend time with the hybrid who had stolen their niece’s heart. And she certainly earned some brownie points when she promised to bring them back some French specialties. Gustus insisted on _madeleines_ and _calissons_ , while Indra asked for a can of _confit de canard_ , as she hadn’t eaten any in years. When it was time to leave, to Clarke’s surprise and Lexa’s delight, both Argents hugged the two young women.

“ _Prends soin d’elle_ ,” Indra whispered into the hybrid’s ear before letting her go.

“ _C’est promis_ ,” the blonde replied with a smile.

As the two of them couldn’t really run all the way to the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport with Clarke as a wolf and Lexa on her back, Gustus volunteered to drop them off. After easily navigating through the check-in and security process, the two women sat in the business lounge area and waited for their flight. The blonde had spared no expenses, and her girlfriend was excited to fly in business for the first time. The brunette had tried to get Clarke to downgrade their tickets, as she felt guilty for not contributing, but she relented when the hybrid pointed out that at least they would be able to sleep better and enjoy their first day in London rather than waste a day jetlagged in bed.

The flight was relatively uneventful, and after watching a movie and enjoying a nice dinner, Lexa managed to rest until they landed at Heathrow Airport. Clarke had booked a hotel near the center of the city, and the two of them were happy to check in, get rid of their suitcases, and shower before exploring parts of the capital. On the first day, they didn’t do much and slept early, but the following four days, they managed to see almost everything they had planned. Though Lexa enjoyed Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guard ceremony, she was even more impressed by the Tower of London, and specifically, the Jewel House hosting the British Crown Jewels collection. The various crowns and processional objects were magnificent, and Lexa would probably have remained there for hours if Clarke’s stomach hadn’t growled loudly, causing both of them to giggle.

On their fifth day in England, they took the train to Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s hometown. They visited his house, the church, and the cemetery where he was buried, before Clarke surprised her lover with tickets to watch a play in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre that evening, _The Winter’s Tale_.

Two days later, the two women took the Eurostar that brought them from London to Paris in just over two hours. The blonde had booked a hotel in Le Marais, the LGBTQ area of Paris, near the center, and the recently renovated Forum des Halles. The first night, they savored falafels bought in the Jewish quarter, not far from the hotel, and Lexa was happy to order for them in French. After the customary visit to the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and Montmartre during the first two full days, the brunette was exhausted. Clarke had happily shown her around the Louvre, introducing her to some of her favorite artists — some of which had also been her students at one point or another. Lexa absolutely loved the 18th-century area, but if she had to choose, the Ancient Greece and Egyptian exhibition was by far her favorite. Especially when her girlfriend playfully growled in annoyance when the brunette asked her if she had been friends with one of the mummies.

On their fourth day in Paris, Clarke brought her to Versailles, the former royal palace, located almost an hour away from the center of Paris by train. They spent the day exploring the main building, with the famous Galerie des Glaces — the Hall of Mirrors — and the chambers of the former kings and queens of France, some of which Clarke confirmed she had met, before exiting to see the gardens and the smaller palaces that Marie-Antoinette had fancied. The hybrid had warned her that the place was gigantic and that she should wear comfortable sneakers, but by the end of the day and despite her increased hunter stamina, Lexa was practically sleepwalking.

The two women agreed to take it easy on the following day and spent most of it in bed. After a delicious breakfast buffet where they indulged in too many pastries, Lexa and Clarke returned to their room, decided to make the most out of the city of love. It started in the bathroom, where the brunette joined her girlfriend in the shower. The blonde was facing the opposite side, and didn’t notice Lexa until the girl opened the glass door and slipped behind her, hands on the pale hips.

“I figured you might want company,” she whispered before kissing her neck, the blonde hair pulled into a lazy bun above her ears.

“Did you?” Clarke replied with a smirk, turning around to connect their lips in a languid kiss that rapidly grew into something more. They had been intimate several times already, during the trip and before, but they had never had the opportunity to make love in the shower. Shivering under the long fingers of her lover, the hybrid suddenly turned them around, pushing Lexa against the tiles. The brunette let out a muffled groan at the contrast between the coldness on the skin of her back and the warmth emanating from Clarke’s body flushed against hers. When the blonde took an already pretty stiff nipple in her mouth and started to play with it, Lexa felt her eyes begin to roll at the back of her head and her pelvis jerk of its own accord.

“I love how reactive you are,” Clarke whispered against her skin before capturing the other bud, her fingers taking over where her lips had been seconds before. They remained there for a few minutes, the brunette holding on the hybrid’s shoulders, hands lost in soft hair, while Clarke worked her up with her mouth. When she noticed Lexa grinding against her thigh, her own leg wrapped around the hybrid’s, she tutted and moved it away.

“Clarke,” the younger woman pleaded, breath erratic and cheeks flushed, “please. I need you.”

“Since you asked so nicely,” the blonde smirked, bringing her fingers down to tease at the heat. Despite the water falling on them, she could feel that her lover was already dripping, and she had to bite her own lips at the warmth that greeted her. “Oh, Lexa,” she moaned when her fingers entered the brunette, eliciting a whimper of pleasure.

She continued to pump in and out at a torturously slow pace, the heel of her palm rubbing at the girl’s clit from time to time. Lexa’s heartbeat was fastening, her head resting against the shower wall, eyes closed. “Lexa,” Clarke called, “look at me, love. Show me those beautiful eyes of yours.”

The brunette took a few seconds to comply, dazed as she already was. When she did, she noticed the faint metallic hue in the eyes of the woman she loved, and kissed her with all her might. A low growl rolled from the back of the hybrid’s throat, and she lifted Lexa off her feet, encouraging her to wrap her long legs around her waist while supporting her with one arm. So far, their sexual encounters had been slow and sweet, the blonde mindful of the girl’s lack of experience. But this time, passion and lust were taking over, and Clarke found herself moving into her girlfriend at a faster pace, earning moans every time her dexterous fingers hit the spongy spot on her front wall.

“Clarke! Oh God,” Lexa whimpered, feeling the pressure increase in her lower back, her wetness covering the blonde’s fingers. Before she could say anything else, the older woman slid her thumb over the swollen clit, and the brunette took off like a rocket. Clarke left her fingers inside, moving at a slower pace to help her ride the aftershocks until Lexa let her head fall on a pale shoulder.

“I think you killed me a little,” she chuckled, trying to catch her breath.

“Well, I certainly hope not. Though the French call it _La petite mort_ , the little death, so I guess it’s fitting,” the hybrid chuckled, still holding her lover’s body up. Once Lexa could move her legs again, they finished soaping and rinsing each other, wandering hands pinching butts and “accidentally” grazing nipples.

They eventually made it to the bed, and Clarke was getting ready to lie on top of her girl and bring her to cloud nine again when, to her surprise, the brunette rolled them over.

“My turn,” she said cheekily, before beginning her slow, slow descent on the blonde’s body. She started at her neck, leaving red and purple marks that disappeared almost immediately to their shared disappointment. After licking her way along the clavicles, she took a fair amount of time kissing and kneading the blonde’s breasts. It was a good thing they would soon have eternity together, as she didn’t think she would ever get enough of the soft flesh and enticing nipples. Feeling her lover growing impatient at the teasing, she continued her journey downwards, nibbling on the pale stomach and hipbones. Once she was faced with the trimmed tuff of blond hair above already glistening flesh, Clarke caught her hands, stopping her with a reassuring smile. “It’s OK, love. You don’t have to.”

After exploring each other’s body with their fingers over the previous weeks, Clarke had eventually introduced Lexa to the wonders of oral sex on prom night. The young woman had screamed so hard when an orgasm surprised her in less than 20 seconds under the talented tongue, she feared she would lose her voice. Since then, the blonde had been happy to go down on her several times, but the student hadn’t reciprocated yet.

“I know,” the brunette replied, thankful to be offered an out despite Clarke’s evident need, “but I want to. I want to make you feel as good as you make me. Just—guide me?”

The hybrid nodded, her lips pinched in an attempt not to appear too eager and pressure the girl. Not wanting to overthink it, Lexa began to kiss the mound in front of her, the inside of the thighs, the outer lips. The taste was rather musky, a little stronger than she had expected, but not in a bad way. Trying to remember what Clarke had done to her, she gathered herself and licked from bottom to top.

“ _Gott!_ ” Clarke shouted, her back perfectly arched over the mattress, “softer love, or I will climax embarrassingly too soon.”

Encouraged by her girlfriend’s reaction, Lexa smirked and continued her ministrations, albeit with less pressure. In truth, she wasn’t quite sure what she was doing, using her tongue to explore more than anything, but if Clarke’s moans and hip rolls were any indications, she appreciated the enthusiasm. When she somewhat accidentally circled the engorged bud, the breathed “There, just there!” let her know she had done well. Not wanting to torture her writhing lover for too long and starting to feel a tightness in her jaw, she did her utmost to reproduce the pattern, alternating between sucking lightly on the bright red nub and drawing little circles at its base. When the blonde suddenly grew quiet, Lexa feared she had done something wrong, but when she opened her mouth to ask, the vibration of her voice was enough to make Clarke explode. The brunette raised her head to watch her lover ride her orgasm, chest flushed, neck taut, her fists holding the sheets so tightly they whitened, probably out of fear of hurting Lexa if she were put her hands on her. When the blonde’s body finally dropped on the bed, hair disheveled and eyes half-closed, she was so beautiful that Lexa couldn’t help but whisper with a lazy grin, “I love you.”

After thoroughly enjoying their time in Paris, Clarke brought Lexa to the Black Forest, in Germany, to show her where she had been born and grew up. Naturally, the region had changed a lot since, but the brunette was happy to hear more about the blonde’s childhood, parents, and older memories. She wished she could have met the two werewolves who had given birth to such an extraordinary woman but didn’t voice her thought, knowing that though she had buried them more than 13 centuries before, the loss of her parents still hurt the blonde.

A few days later, they arrived in Roma, Italy, for another week of sightseeing and delicious food. The brunette was surprised by the number of scooters, far more common than in the other European cities she had visited. The Coliseum and Vatican produced to be as beautiful as she had expected, but it was the Sistine Chapel that truly amazed her. Unsurprisingly, the blonde confirmed that Michelangelo had been a friend of hers, despite being da Vinci’s long-term rival, and though she refused to say which ones, she had influenced some of his paintings.

Their stomach bulging with pasta and the most delicious pizzas on earth, the couple flew to their last destination, Barcelona, in Spain. Clarke had suggested Madrid instead, but the brunette had heard so much about Gaudí and the famous Rambla, she couldn’t be persuaded to miss it. The two women spent five days there, exploring the various monuments designed by the renowned Catalan architect, savoring cervezas and sangria on La Rambla, and eating tapas in bars.

On the last day of their trip, Lexa felt a wave of sadness overwhelm her. She couldn’t wait to see Anya, the Argents, and the pack, but in less than a month, she had completely fallen in love with the old continent.

“Are you OK, love?” Clarke asked her, sensing a change in her mood.

“Yes. It’s just... I wish we could stay longer. I’m going to miss this place.”

“We can come back whenever you want,” the blonde replied, hugging her lover from behind. “We could even move here for a while once you are done with your studies.”

And for the first time Lexa realized that yes, she would like to live in different places one day, and explore the rest of the world hand in hand with her soulmate.

madeleines

calissons

confit de canard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prends soin d’elle (Fr.) = Take care of her  
> C’est promis (Fr.) = I promise (I will)  
> Gott (Ger.) = God  
> cerveza (Sp.) = bier  
> sangria = a Spanish drink made with red wine, Porto and citrus fruits  
> tapas = assortment of Spanish appetizers or snacks
> 
> Fun fact: I lived in England for a year, and during that time I went to Stratford-upon-Avon once with a friend, and we saw The Winter’s Tale. Though both of us were already pretty fluent in English back then, we couldn't understand a single thing of what was happening 😂😅  
> Still a good memory though!


	20. Chapter 20

The summer had ended faster than either Lexa or Clarke would have liked, and with it their trip to Europe. Though the lovers were happy to reunite with their friends and family, they both kept in mind the conversation they had had in Barcelona, and stayed open to the possibility of relocating there once Lexa was done with her studies. But first, she had to start university.

When September rolled in, the brunette, with Anya, Clarke, and Harper’s help, moved most of her belongings into the two-bed room she would share with Harper for the following two years. The brown-eyed blonde had been more than happy to keep Lexa company in this endeavor, excited as she was to study a new course. As the Woods siblings learned that day, Clarke and many of her packmates had graduated from university several times, obtaining degrees and even doctorates in various fields; eternity proving to be a little boring when you had nothing special to do. She mentioned that it was how she had met Monty and Jasper at the beginning of the 20th century, the two then werewolves already thick as thieves. Clarke eventually confessed that, although Raven and Monty held the highest number of diplomas, during the past century alone, she had practiced as a surgeon, a biochemist, as well as an art teacher.

After careful consideration and some lengthy discussions with her family, Lexa had opted for pre-law. It was a field that had always interested her, and she was hoping to practice as a lawyer one day if the pack activities allowed her enough time. The knowledge that she could retrain and change her path later helped assuage any doubts she had. After the first couple of weeks, the professors didn’t hesitate anymore to give them a lot of assignments and tests, forcing her to study hard, but the brunette was happy with her decision. Her classmates were friendly enough, living with Harper was very easy as the woman did her best to support Lexa without overstepping boundaries, and Clarke visited regularly.

*****

The winter holidays arrived faster than the brunette could have anticipated, and as per usual, they were spent with the Argents. Only this time, it was in Polis, and Lexa couldn’t be happier. After she had told them about the possibility of Anya selling the house during her visit in the summer, the couple had talked at length, and decided to move in. They missed their nieces, and with all the events of the previous two years, the hunters felt like they should spend more time with the Woods siblings. When Lexa had returned from her trip, Gustus and Indra had called Anya and asked if she would agree to rent out the house to them instead, which the tall blonde had immediately accepted. In truth, the prospect of selling the place where she and Lexa had lived for eight years was tearing her in two, and not only she was delighted to be able to keep it, she missed her aunt and uncle dearly every time they left Polis.

That was how the seven hybrids, the student, and the two hunters found themselves around a large table full of delicious dishes on Christmas Eve. The Argents had offered to host the party, but their new house couldn’t so easily accommodate 10 people, and Clarke had been happy to step in and open her home to them instead. Lincoln brought a large Christmas tree back from the forest that the pack enthusiastically decorated. Noticing Lexa’s bafflement at their almost childish behavior, Monty explained with a chuckle that when you lived forever, yearly events and celebrations tended to lose their appeal after a while. But since this was the first time that they were celebrating with a new packmate, not to mention herself and the Argents, it held a lot more meaning.

Indra’s insistence on cooking French food had led to a full-out cultural war, and the overflowing table was the result. Between the _Terrine de poisson en gelée_ and the _Chapon de pintade farci_ brought by the dark-skinned woman, the _Tetilla cheese puffs_ and seafood soup prepared by Raven competed with Harper’s Christmas ham. Clarke had decided to take care of the beverages instead, and her _Feuerzangenbowle_ was quite the hit. Even Lexa, who had discovered during the summer trip that she enjoyed alcohol on occasions, poured herself a second glass, pretending not to notice Anya’s eye roll.

After the copious dinner, the pack decided to initiate Lexa and the Argents to one of their own traditions: a hunt. According to them, there was no better way to burn the excess of calories ingested, and since that year’s Christmas Eve happened to fall on a full moon, it was even more special. Not wanting to be carried once again, the Argents opted out, wishing them a good hunt, and reminded the pack that they would see them for lunch the day after. Lexa, on the other hand, couldn’t contain her grin at the thought of spending time among the trees with her lover.

Once the group reached the forest, the hybrids turned into wolves, their tails shaking excitedly at the prospect of losing themselves in the wild, only illuminated by the moonlight. Despite her thick jacket, the brunette was beginning to shiver, and she gladly jumped onto the blonde’s back, her warm furry body proving to be the perfect antidote against the low temperatures. Clarke sniffed the air, her snout proudly raised high in the sky, before letting two short yaps out. The hunt had begun. Lexa, hands holding on to the fur and thighs secured around the wolf’s body, couldn’t contain her laugher when Clarke lunged forward. It had been a long time since they had explored the forest together, the brunette and the blonde in her wolf form, and it was still one of her favorite activities. Recently, thoughts of what it would be to transform into a canid too, to run by her soulmate’s side, sleep next to her on the forest ground, unbothered by the elements, had appeared more and more frequently into the young woman’s head. She was refraining from telling her lover about it, for now, not wanting to pressure her or rush things, but in her heart, she was looking forward to becoming a hybrid.

The pack separated into three groups as they moved deeper into the forest. Raven and Anya were running next to Clarke, and Lexa smiled at the sight of her sister. The former hunter was a natural according to Raven, no one would be able to tell that she had only recently been turned. The golden wolf, slightly smaller than Clarke but larger than the gray one of Raven, was moving quietly, her massive paws avoiding the leaves and fallen branches with an ease the brunette envied. She could only hope that she would prove as graceful and quick to learn as her older sister.

When the hybrids returned home that night, they were all sporting a large grin. They had run for hours, and caught a couple of deer before letting them escape, as they were still way too full to eat them anyway. The thrill of the hunt was more than enough to satisfy their instincts. After bidding each other good night, the four couples separated and retired to their respective rooms. Lexa was exhausted, but happy about the experience. Clarke had chosen to stay in her wolf form for the night, knowing how much the young brunette enjoyed rubbing her fur, and they curled against each other on the mattress.

“I want you to start training me, Clarke,” the student suddenly said, breaking the silence.

Her soulmate cocked her large furry head to the side, clearly surprised at the request. Lexa had been learning with Anya, and occasionally Lincoln, for over a year, and she was showing tremendous abilities. Gustus and Indra often gushed about it, which always brought a shade of pink on the chiseled cheekbones. Why would the brunette want to train with Clarke?

“Not to fight, though I’m guessing you are pretty good at it too,” Lexa explained. “I would like you to teach me about everything else as well. How to track and move silently in the forest, what plants are comestible and which aren’t, how to treat simple wounds... All the things I’ll need to know once I become a hybrid.”

Clarke remained quiet, but she brought her head closer to her girlfriend’s, their foreheads touching for a few seconds. The student didn’t need a werewolf telepathic connection to understand, and she beamed at her lover’s acceptance and happiness.

The rest of the year passed fairly quickly. Despite the amount of schoolwork she was faced with, Lexa diligently continued her training with Anya and Clarke. The brunette, who had turned 19 at the beginning of the calendar year, was stronger and faster than ever. Her hunter abilities were manifesting to their fullest, allowing her to compete, if for a moment, with some of the hybrids. Thanks to her rigorous sparring sessions with Anya, Octavia, and Lincoln, she had mastered several martial arts and could fight with a large variety of weapons. The short brunette had been happy to lend her a hand, and revealed herself as the most proficient fighter with weapons. She and Lexa hadn’t interacted much before, and the student was surprised to hear that, where Clarke focused on art and medicine and Raven on her inventions, Octavia was the one who had been involved in most of the wars that happened over the centuries. Things took a different turn once she met Lincoln, and she was now much calmer and at peace, though her passion for blades very much remained.

*****

Having passed her freshman year with flying colors, Lexa enjoyed spending her summer break back at the hybrids’ house. She and Clarke opted not to go on a long trip this time, preferring instead to spend their days in the forest, making love on blankets and swimming in the river. True to her word, Clarke taught the brunette how to survive and silently move around the forest, begrudgingly leaving her alone for three days at the end of the summer to test her newly acquired skills. When the blonde wolf returned to where she had left her lover, the brunette, covered in mud to mask her scent, managed to jump on her from a bush and roll her on her back. Clarke turned back into a human immediately, her blue eyes beaming with pride at her lover and a laugh on her lips, before lifting Lexa in her arms and throwing her into the river as retaliation.

With Bellamy and Echo deciding to return to Polis, it would have been a perfect summer if not for the news of two packs of wolves fighting over some European territory. After the whole ordeal with the vampires of Mount Weather, Jasper and Maya had elected to move to Central Europe and spend some time alone. Things were fine for almost two years, but the local packs began competing over some wooded area and its game, and the situation was escalating quickly. Fearing the humans would get involved and organize hunts if they heard of large wolves in their woods, the hybrids had to intervene. To Clarke’s relief, Monty and Harper volunteered to help their best friends handle the issue, allowing the blonde to remain in Polis with her soulmate. Lexa was sad to lose her roommate, who had been nothing other than kind to her, but she reasoned that it was only for a year anyway, as she would move in with her girlfriend during the next summer.

*****

When the brunette entered her assigned room in the dormitories of Polis University, she noticed that her new roommate had already made herself at home and chosen the bed on the left. Some clothes were hanging in the closet and displayed on the bed, mostly black and grungy, the only indication of the girl’s personality so far. Lexa could only hope the other student wouldn’t play heavy metal all night.

She was in the middle of unpacking her suitcase when the door opened, revealing a pretty black-haired woman with deep dark eyes. After the traditional introductions, the brunette learned that her new roommate was called Ontari Fish, she originally came from Canada, and was in Polis to study literature. Though a bit abrupt, the girl seemed nice enough, and Lexa hoped that they could eventually become friends.

It felt weird to come out to a perfect stranger, but knowing that Clarke would probably visit her regularly once things settled down and not wanting to put up with a homophobe for a year, Lexa bit the bullet and mentioned her girlfriend. To her utter relief, Ontari didn’t bat an eyelid at the news. If anything, she seemed rather interested, and asked plenty of questions about how the two had met, how long they had been together... Lexa hated lying, but explaining that her lover had nearly killed her and her sister during their first meeting would raise eyebrows. Instead, she repeated the cute meet story she and Clarke had come up with during their trip to Europe. 

About a week into the semester, Ontari invited Lexa for a run, claiming that she needed someone to show her the area. After sending Clarke a text to let her know that she would meet her for lunch, the two young women, clad in sportswear, walked towards the forest. The brunette explained that she loved to jog alongside the trees, as the path was usually deserted. Her roommate nodded her approbation, and after stretching, the two took off.

Lexa was mindful to keep a slower pace than usual lest Ontari would figure out she was not a regular human. To her surprise though, the dark-haired girl had no difficulty keeping up with her. They had run for a good 30 minutes, moving further and further away from the busy streets, when suddenly Lexa couldn’t hear Ontari breathing behind her. Turning around, she looked for her, confused as to how the girl had vanished without a trace. She had just stepped into the forest, calling out for her roommate, when two strong hands grabbed her throat, threatening to crush her windpipe.

Terrine de poisson en gelée

Chapon de pintade farci

Tetilla cheese puffs

Feuerzangenbowle


	21. Chapter 21

Black spots were dancing in Lexa’s eyes, the lack of oxygen in her brain threatening to make her pass out. Trying her best to remember all her training sessions with Lincoln, she caught one of the little fingers wrapped tightly around her throat, and twisted it until she heard the bone break. With a roar, the person behind her threw her against a tree, the impact pushing whatever air she had left out of her lungs.

Lexa shook her head to clear the fog in front of her eyes, and lifted her chin to look at her assailant. Ontari. The girl seemed enraged, her dark brown orbs, almost black now, shining with a metallic hue. Her canines were rapidly extending, fur covering the visible skin. A werewolf. The brunette had been living with a werewolf for 10 days, and she hadn’t even realized it. Grinding her teeth, Lexa tried to get back on her feet, but a sharp pain erupted from her side, making her groan. She had to have broken a couple of ribs during her collision with the tree. At least, it didn’t feel like they had perforated her lungs, or she wouldn’t be able to move and breathe, but that could still happen if her roommate, now fully turned into a large, dangerous dark-furred wolf, managed to hit her chest.

Ontari taunted her hinder legs, preparing to jump at the hunter lying on the ground, when a gray wolf rammed into her side and sent her flying. Octavia. The hybrid growled, her greenish eyes not leaving her adversary, her lean body positioned halfway between the two roommates. The two wolves challenged each other, snapping their jaws threateningly at their opponent’s throat. Lexa knew that Octavia should have the upper hand, she was a hybrid after all, but now that whatever mist that had hidden Ontari’s nature was lifted, she could sense that the dark-haired girl was no ordinary werewolf either. She seemed stronger, more powerful, and dangerous. And even if she wanted to, in her current state, Lexa couldn’t help her friend.

Relief flew in her veins when the student heard two separate animals run towards them. In a flash, Lincoln and Bellamy appeared next to their packmate, their slops drawn back in a show of teeth. Ontari, sensing that she didn’t stand a chance anymore, turn tailed and took off on all four. The siblings immediately followed, but Lincoln remained by Lexa’s side, returning to his human form in seconds.

“Lexa, are you hurt?”

“Yeah,” the brunette admitted, “I’m pretty sure my ribs are broken.”

Nodding with concern, the dark-skinned hybrid bit his wrist and brought it to her mouth. Lexa forced herself not to make a face at the sight of the dark liquid, and swallowed some of it.

“It won’t heal you as well as Clarke’s blood would, but it should help alleviate the pain while I carry you back home. May I?” her great-uncle asked, before lifting her in his muscular arms when she agreed.

The journey back to their house took longer than usual, Lincoln being careful not to shake his precious cargo and worsen her injuries. And yet, Lexa was thankful for the numbness caused by the blood’s regenerative properties, as she could still feel pain on her left side every step the man took and after every breath. 

Once they finally entered the house, her ancestor lay her down on the living room sofa as gently as he could; Clarke showing at her side less than a second later.

“My love, how are you?” the blonde asked, taking her girlfriend’s cheek in her right hand.

“Hurts.”

Without wasting another instant, the Clarke bit her wrist, and Lexa was forced to drink swallows of blood once more. She couldn’t wait for the day it wouldn’t make her stomach turn, as she seemed to need some a little too often for her taste. At least, her soulmate’s elixir of life was the most potent there was for her, and she could already feel her ribs mending. They would probably be tender for a day or two, but the pressure in her chest diminished after 20 minutes.

“What happened _meine Geliebte_? Lincoln said you were attacked by a werewolf?”

“Yeah, it was Ontari, my roommate,” Lexa explained, waiting for Clarke’s growl to stop before she could continue. “She suggested we go for a run this morning. We jogged for a while, and once we were in a quiet area near the forest, she surprised me from behind and tried to choke me. If not for Lincoln’s teachings, she would probably have succeeded.”

The bald man put one of his hands on her shoulder, squeezing it once as if to say, “You are welcome, I’m glad you are OK.”

“Anyway, I managed to break her hold, but she threw me against a tree, and I couldn’t move anymore. Luckily, Octavia and then Bellamy and Lincoln intervened.”

Clarke looked like she was going to be sick, her jaw was clenched, her fists tightened, her eyes, normally a deep dark blue, were stormy and shining with rage. She was breathing in and out loudly, trying to contain her emotions, but the thought of her soulmate nearly being killed was too unsettling, even for a 15-century-old creature.

“Clarke, _mon amour_ , look at me,” Lexa whispered, taking one of the blonde’s fists in her hand and gently lifting her chin so their eyes could meet. “I’m fine. She hurt me, but I’m already feeling better, thanks to you and Lincoln. You have to calm down, OK? Just breathe, for me, please?”

The blonde nuzzled her lover’s neck, inhaling her scent until her heart rate subsided enough that she didn’t fear she would transform by accident. When a hand crept into her locks and started scratching her scalp, she felt herself purr. She was still intertwined with Lexa when Bellamy and Octavia entered the room, both back in their human forms, unhappy looks on their faces.

“Apologies Clarke,” the curly-haired man said, bowing his head, “we lost the werewolf’s tracks in the mountains. It was as if she disappeared into thin air.”

“How is that possible?” the blonde growled, her fury growing once again. “How could a simple wolf escape two of our best trackers?”

“Actually,” Lexa intervened, “I’m not sure she’s a simple wolf. There was something different about her. For starters, I never realized she was one. My hunter instincts should have picked up a vibe, but I only sensed it after she had shown me her true nature. And once I could, it was different from how Anya was. Like she was stronger.”

“That could mean that she was a true werewolf,” Raven thought out loud, she and Anya having just joined the group, before explaining herself for the Woods siblings’ sake. “Those who are born as werewolves, like Clarke, are in fact very rare. Almost all wolves are bitten.”

“That is true,” Clarke sighed, “and part of the reason why my mother’s pregnancy went wrong. It is extremely rare for a werewolf to carry a pregnancy to term, and even when they do, one of the parents is often a human and so is the baby. During my whole existence, I have met very few true werewolves. They tend to be stronger, but also a lot more aggressive.”

“But that doesn’t explain how she could hide her aura,” Anya pointed out. “If anything, it should have been easier to detect, right? So how did she manage that? And how could she disappear without leaving a trace? Someone must be helping her. Not to mention, why attack Lexa? She is a true hunter now, but she has never killed a sup, it doesn’t make sense.”

“Nia,” Echo growled, her face contorted in fear and anger.

Clarke and the rest of the pack remained silent for a minute, pondering over the tall woman’s suggestion. They hadn’t heard about the werewolf queen in more than a decade, but they all had to admit that she was the most likely suspect.

“Who’s that?” Lexa eventually asked, since no one seemed to disagree with Echo.

“The one who turned me,” the black-haired woman replied with a grimace. “She’s a relatively old werewolf, has been around for a century or so. Most of the time she’s based in Canada, though she has been known to move around on occasion. She calls herself the Ice Queen. She must have had a witch from a nearby coven put a cover spell on Ontari.”

“A queen? I thought the supernatural creatures didn’t have any official leader, or royalty?” Lexa exclaimed, surprised. Gustus and Indra had done their best to teach her everything they knew about the supernatural world and its history during the previous two years, and from what she could remember, most of them tended to live in small groups, often fighting against each other.

“We don’t,” Bellamy confirmed, “and if we did, it would be Clarke.”

“Bellamy,” the blonde warned, not wanting to hear this again. She had no interest in leading hundreds of sups. Her pack was more than enough for her, they were her family after all. She didn’t need to be worshipped, or envied.

“Anyway,” Echo continued, “she wants to be more than just a pack leader. She has been turning children into wolves for decades, training them and forcing them to do her bidding. She doesn’t have a pack; she has an army of loyal soldiers who help her spread her influence and would gladly die for her.”

“And you were one of them?” Anya asked. The tall blonde had been part of the pack for some time, but the hybrids rarely discussed their past, Echo even less than most of them. Though she didn’t have anything against the dark-haired woman, she had sensed from the start that her story was more complex than the others’, and had refrained from asking too many questions.

“Yes. I became an orphan during World War II when my father was killed in action. My mother had already passed, and I was made a pupil of the state. A year or two later, I was adopted by a tall, cold woman, along with several other children under the age of 10. After bringing her back to her home, she revealed her true nature to us, and bit us, one by one. She tore out the throat of the girl who cried the loudest, and we all kept quiet after that.”

“My gosh, that’s horrible!” Lexa exclaimed, unable to stop her knee-jerk reaction. After spending so much time with the kind, respectful hybrids, she sometimes forgot that not all sups were the same, and that some had been hunted by her ancestors for a good reason.

“It is what it is,” Echo shrugged, not wanting to spend too much time on her traumatic childhood. “That’s how she does it, turns impressionable children and then brainwashes them. I followed her laws for three decades until I met Bellamy, and Clarke’s pack. They rescued me from a dire situation, and eventually, I realized that I didn’t have to live like I was. Breaking off from the pack was hard, but with their support, I got my freedom back. And after mating with Bellamy, and becoming a hybrid, there was nothing more she could do.”

“But why come after me?” the student wondered. “I’ve never even met the woman, why would she send someone to kill me?”

“I am afraid that is because of me, love,” Clarke sighed. “Nia and I have been at odds for decades. She must have found out that you are my soulmate, and hope to destroy me by killing you while she still can. You see, after my parents’ death, I stayed away from werewolves for a long time, not wanting to get attached to people who would grow old and die when I never would. So, I did not engage with any of them, happy to simply stay with Marcus. The first one I became close to was Octavia, during the 12th century in Greece. To keep it short, she was already a werewolf, bitten, like most of her family, and she had been attacked by a rival pack and left for dead. She seemed so innocent, I felt guilty for ignoring her cries, and I gave her some of my blood in the hope to heal her, or at least help her regeneration abilities.”

“But she died, didn’t she?” Anya asked, sensing where the story was going.

“Yeah, I did,” the short brunette confirmed. “And came back a couple of hours later, buried six feet under. I had to crawl my way out, and gave Clarke quite a fright.”

“I had no idea that my blood possessed some vampiric properties. My parents had died of old age, without any in their system. We eventually figured out that it only worked on werewolves, and that they had to die for the process to be complete. The next hybrid I made was Bellamy, who refused to be separated from his sister. And then Raven, and later the others.”

“And where does Nia fit into all this?” Lexa wondered.

“Well, by the time we met, about 70 years ago, she was already leading a large pack, and saw us as a threat,” Clarke explained. “I think her ambition was to rule all the werewolves, and, of course, we refused to kneel, or help. Worse, she tried to force me to transform her into a hybrid, which I naturally refused once I realized what her intentions were. We have been — well, not quite at war — but in very unfriendly terms since. Making Echo one of our own did not help either.”

“I swore to protect humans, and to keep the existence of the supernatural world a secret from them,” the blonde continued after a short pause. “She only wishes to turn as many as she can, and to hunt down the rest. I was hoping she would die soon enough and all this would be over, but if she is resolute to come after you, this situation cannot be ignored any longer.”

“So, you will go to war, all of you, for me?” the brunette challenged, a deep frown visible on her forehead.

“Yes,” the pack responded as one.

“Then I want to become one of you. It’s time.”

Wolf Ontari

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mon amour (Fr.) = my love


	22. Chapter 22

The silence that greeted Lexa’s statement was deafening, quickening heartbeats the only thing tearing through it. Though it realistically only lasted a few seconds, they felt like hours, until Clarke finally spoke.

“Lexa, you do not have to rush into anything. We will take care of Nia and make sure you are safe, I promise.”

“I know, Clarke. I’m not afraid. I want to fight by your side, all of you.”

“But you do not need to, my love. It is too soon. You are still studying, growing. I thought you wanted this, the life of a normal young woman. Once you are turned, it will be more difficult while you adjust to your new abilities to pass as a human.”

“Clarke...” Lexa groaned, annoyed at her lover’s reluctance. “Plans change in battle, you taught me that. We have to adapt and react to our circumstances, and me becoming a hybrid is the soundest option.”

The pack remained quiet, watching the lovers argue back and forth with interfering. When Clarke turned towards Anya, however, the tall blonde found herself dragged in the middle of the conversation.

“Are you not going to say anything, Anya?” Clarke asked pointedly, hoping that the former hunter would support her and convince her sister not to go through with her idea. A couple of years before, she probably would have, but things had changed a lot since that.

“I was hoping Lex would have more time before it came to this, but she’s an adult,” Anya sighed, before adding, “I’d rather see her become a hybrid than risk her being killed in the crossfire. Besides, it would be hypocritical of me to try to stop her, when it is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Raven stood closer to her soulmate, and took her hand in a display of support and relief. The Latina had confessed feeling guilty about robbing her of the choice to be turned, but the dirty-blonde haired woman had reassured her lover right away that she didn’t regret it, and that, if she had been able to speak that day, she would have agreed to it. Despite the complicated situation at the time, Anya was happy to be a hybrid, and to have met the one person who completed her.

“Could you give us some privacy, please?” Lexa pleaded with the rest of the pack, who immediately moved out of the living room, leaving her alone with her girlfriend.

“I don’t understand you,” the brunette continued, her hand caressing the blonde’s face, “I thought you’d be the first one to support this. Why are you always hellbent on stopping me from becoming one of you?”

“Lex… I want this for you, for us, eventually. But not because the circumstances dictate it. Why do you always ask me to turn you so you can run into battle?”

“This is nothing like Mount Weather!” the younger woman huffed, taking a step back. “This time I’m not just a bystander, they came for _me_ , Clarke. They attacked _me_ , and now you are all going to fight because of it. You can’t just pretend that it isn’t my decision to make.”

“Or are you afraid you’ll regret it?” she asked, her voice breaking. “Do you want me to stay human, so we don’t have to mate?”

“Aw Lexa,” the blonde shook her head before taking her lover in her arms, their foreheads pressed together. “ _Ich liebe dich, meine Geliebte_. Do you doubt that?”

“Then why are you trying to persuade me to wait?”

“Because—once you become a werewolf, our soulmate connection will so much harder to resist, for both of us, and—”

“And you’re afraid I’ll feel like I was forced to mate with you,” Lexa finished, understanding what her girlfriend hesitated to say. The nod and sigh escaping the pink lips were confirmation enough. “You noble idiot, I love you too! I want this, us, forever. I _want_ to become your mate. Heck, I’d marry you tomorrow if you had me.”

“You would?” the blonde asked, vulnerability evident in the quivering of her lower lip and her beautiful deep blue eyes.

“Of course. I know I reacted poorly the first time you told me about all this,” the brunette apologized, her head low in shame when she remembered rejecting her lover, “but that was years ago. I had just learned about the supernatural worlds, and I panicked. I’m sorry for that, and you have to understand that I’m not afraid of it anymore. You are it for me, Clarke. You are my soulmate, werewolf or not, and—”

Whatever the brunette was going to say got stuck in her throat when Clarke crashed their mouths together so fast that their teeth shook. In her surprise, Lexa only realized that the hybrid had slid them across the room when she felt the wall against her back, anchoring her. The blonde’s body was flushed against hers, trapping her against a beautiful 14th-century tapestry, her mouth hot against the column of the unmarked neck, nipping at it.

“Clarke. Clarke!” Lexa shouted, gently pushing her lover by the shoulders to put some distance between them.

“First, I need to let Anya, Gustus, and Indra know about this. Then, we mate. Preferably in a house that isn’t hosting half of your pack,” she added with a smirk, delighted to see how her declaration of love had managed to make Clarke lose all sense of decorum for a moment.

The hybrid nodded once and stood aside, not trusting herself to remain by the brunette’s side without attempting to bite her. Through the centuries, she had perfected her self-control, and her inner wolf practically never took the helm. But Lexa’s speech had woken it and its need to claim and mate, taking the blonde by surprise. If not for her fear of hurting her lover or scaring her with the primal urge, she would have bitten her.

After a quick chat with Anya, Lexa called the Argents and invited them to the hybrids’ house; Lincoln and Octavia accompanying them to make sure Nia’s pack wouldn’t exert their revenge on them, since they had failed to kill the student. Despite Lexa’s apprehensiveness, Gustus and Indra almost immediately approved of her being turned. They both had heard of the Ice Queen through rumors and other hunters' accounts, and believed the threat to be very real. Anything that could ensure the safety of their nieces had their support. Besides, after seeing how well Anya had adjusted to being a hybrid, they did not doubt that Lexa would be fine too. In light of the danger they were all facing, the couple agreed to stay with the pack until Nia and her followers were stopped, much to the Woods sisters’ relief.

The next morning, they all prepared themselves for Lexa’s transformation. Contrary to what had happened with Anya, the brunette would have to be turned into a hybrid quickly, foregoing the period of adaptation into her werewolf state. Rather than having awkward conversations with her loved ones before the process could start, Lexa persuaded Clarke to bite her wrist in the privacy of their room, plunging her almost immediately into a deep sleep while her DNA rewrote itself.

The following hours saw a heavy cloud of anxiety over the house. Clarke was pacing in the living room, Raven and Bellamy doing their best to calm her down, while Anya had replaced her at Lexa’s bedside, when suddenly, the girl woke with a groan. The sensory overload was difficult to process, threatening to make her brain explode, and Lexa thrashed about for long minutes on the bed. Her soulmate, who had run back to be with her as soon as she had heard her cries, stroke her hair, whispering calming words in her ears in an attempt to calm her. When she realized that none of it was working, Clarke held her lover’s head in her hands, staring at the metallic green eyes, and commanded, “Turn, my love. Turn.”

With a growl that forced everyone else to take a step back, Lexa rolled on her stomach, her legs cracking and twisting, the bones breaking to reshape themselves. When her arms started doing the same, the brunette cried out, “It hurts. Clarke, it hurts so much!”

“I know, Lexa, I’m sorry,” the blonde replied, wiping the tears that had escaped from her eyes at the sight of her lover in pain. “It will be over soon, I promise. Do not fight it, let the pain in.”

Lexa couldn’t do more than groan and whimper after that, her head transforming too. Her long chestnut hair disappeared into her skull, replaced by a soft, brown fur, white around the snout that protruded in place of her normally regal nose. The white teeth fell, sharp canid ones and canines strong enough to cut through metal growing in their place. The most painful part of the transformation occurred right after, when the spine bent and shortened, the rib cage expanding, until, finally, it was all over.

Where the 19-year-old had lain, now stood a wolf as big as Clarke’s, her emerald eyes a few shades darker than their normal hue. Lexa, still recovering from the excruciating process, was panting, her long pink tongue comically hanging from her chops. Not wasting another second, her soulmate turned too, and the blonde hybrid rubbed her head against her lover, helping her lay on the bed. The process was far from over, but the young woman needed a break before they could continue, and Clarke was happy to cuddle with her, licking at the brown fur and purring in unison. A couple of hours later, Lexa woke from her nap, feeling refreshed despite the constant assault of smells and sounds. She was beginning to whimper when a voice cut her attention.

“Shh, my love. You are safe. Breathe.”

Knowing that she was only halfway through the transformation, the brunette eventually had to turn back, with Clarke’s help. Though she gritted her teeth and couldn’t stop some whimpers from escaping, returning to her human form hurt less, and she knew that the pain would lessen with each transformation.

For the second part, they required help from the pack. Clarke agreed to give Lexa her blood, but she was incapable of ending her soulmate’s life, even temporarily. In the end, Bellamy volunteered, while the others forced the blonde out of the room, despite her protests. She didn’t want to let the brunette go through it alone, but since all members feared she would decapitate the curly-haired man in a fit of rage, Anya offered to stay in her place. After hugging her sister, Lexa exhaled deeply, closed her eyes, and nodded that she was ready; allowing Bellamy to break her neck in a second.

The growl that followed made the house quake, and it took the combined strength of Lincoln, Octavia, Echo, and Raven to stop the blonde wolf from breaking the bedroom door and launching herself at her second-in-command. For the next two hours, Clarke paced along the mattress where her lover lay, whimpering and nudging her cold hand regularly. When the brunette finally took in a deep breath and opened her eyes, the blonde yapped with joy and jumped next to her, licking her face over and over.

“Clarke! Clarke, stop!” Lexa laughed, trying to avoid the rough wet, and pink muscle.

Alerted by the noise, the rest of the pack entered the room cautiously, still wary of Clarke after her previous reaction.

“How are you feeling, Squid?” Anya inquired, a large smile on her face now that her younger sister was back in the land of the livings.

“Better than ever,” the green-eyed hybrid replied truthfully, before adding with a smirk, “Are you ready to get your ass kicked Grandma?”

_I have been waiting to see that for a long time._

In her state, it took her a moment to realize that the teasing voice had come from the blonde wolf standing next to her, but that the words had echoed directly into her mind.

_Clarke?_

_Yes, dear. It’s good to finally hear you._

_You too_ , the brunette answered, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. She was one with the pack, at last. Now there remained one more step she was looking forward to.

Wolf Lexa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ich liebe dich, meine Geliebte (Ger.) = I love you, my love


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mating time!

Once Clarke was back in her human form, the two soulmates couldn’t tear their eyes off each other, prompting Anya to cough several times.

“OK, not that the heart eyes are making me want to puke, but shouldn’t you like — get a room or something?”

Leave it to her sister to embarrass her on the most important day of her life Lexa sighed, internally rolling her eyes. She did raise a good point, though. Now that she was a werewolf, the brunette could feel the pull towards Clarke tenfold stronger, and if they didn’t get privacy _soon_ , she couldn’t promise they wouldn’t give the rest of the pack a free show. And that would be awkward. With her new abilities, she wondered how long she would be able to support Clarke with one arm with the other hand buried—

Based on the blonde’s blush, Anya’s disgusted face, Raven’s guffaw and the rest of the house’s occupants’ snickers — Gustus and Indra were none the wiser, thank the gods for small mercies — she might have broadcasted that more than intended. Which was confirmed when Octavia patted her arm with a smirk and a, “Welcome to the club, pup” that made her groan. Turning towards Clarke, she expected her girlfriend to get annoyed or come to her defense, but instead, she found her pensive, almost sad.

“Everything OK, Love?”

“Yes,” the blonde replied, before sighing. “It is simply that, when I imagined us finally mating, I pictured bringing you to a wonderful place, maybe an island. Palawan is amazing this time of year. We could spend our days making love, snorkeling, eating exotic food. I never thought we would be stuck in Polis.”

“Hey, come here,” the brunette said, opening her arms so the older woman could huddle up against her chest. “Once all of this is over, we will take a vacation, and do exactly that. You promised to show me the world, remember? I intend on making you keep your word.”

Lexa felt her soulmate chuckle under her chin, and smiled. “I love you, Clarke. I just want to be with you, be your mate. A nice, romantic setting would have been a plus, sure, but it’s not the most important thing.”

“How did I manage to find someone as perfect as you?” the blonde wondered, before locking their lips together in a tender kiss that rapidly deepened. The sexual attraction was proving harder and harder to resist, and they had to get privacy before one of them lost control.

“OK, locking ourselves up for a few days with our family and friends around sounds tacky,” Lexa grimaced. “Since Indra and Gustus are here, can we go to the house?”

“I suppose yes,” Clarke replied, thoughtful, “it’s not ideal to be alone because we will be more vulnerable than usual, but as long as the pack keeps an eye on the house and patrols the street to stop potential enemies from coming too close, it should work.”

And with that, they all started to prepare for the next few days. The Argents restocked the shelves and made sure the fridge was full of homemade meals for when the couple would take breaks, and the pack established a lookout schedule. Anya’s only request was that she would be patrolling as far away from the house as possible, in case the walls weren’t thick enough to provide soundproofing against her now sharper hearing; which Lexa enthusiastically supported.

Two hours later, the soulmates entered Lexa’s former house, hand in hand, their smile barely containing nervous giggles. The brunette wondered if it would be too presumptuous to bring her lover directly into her old bedroom, and chose to pull her to the sofa for a kiss first. Naturally, she had forgotten to take into account the rush of desire that flowed through her veins once Clarke straddled her and nipped at her jaw.

Impatient hands ran under her T-shirt, nails raking against her shivering abs while the blonde’s other hand was pressing against her shoulder blade and playing with her baby hair. Holding back a moan, Lexa started to caress the strong thighs pushing her into the sofa, all the way to a soft and yet muscular bottom. Squeezing it twice, she smiled when Clarke whimpered at her action, and rolled her hips more forcefully.

“Lex, take me to bed,” she pleaded, not wanting to spend the next couple of days on the sofa, no matter how comfortable it was.

Not trusting herself not to squeak if she spoke, the brunette stood silently, hoisting the blonde around her waist. Clarke seemed happy to let her lead, her arms holding onto strong shoulders, her mouth never living Lexa’s for more than a second. Thanks to the years she had spent in this house, the younger woman blindly found her way to her bedroom, sliding them there in the blink of an eye, before pushing the blonde against the door. As it turned out, she could easily carry her lover with one hand while the other ripped off both their clothes in a matter of seconds, leaving them bare naked.

At the back of her mind, she knew that they would be more comfortable lying on the bed, rolling in the sheets, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to stop. The wolf in her was taking control, and unused as she was to reining it, she had no other choice but to let it be in charge, and follow her instinct. Clarke, sensing the change in her usually more submissive lover, encouraged her with moans and scratches on her back; and she couldn’t hold her mewl when the younger woman entered her with two fingers, barely giving her time to adjust before she starting pumping in and out at a fast pace.

“Lexa! _Gott! So gut!_ ” she panted, unable to keep her eyes open.

The brunette, lost to the animal in her, kept grunting and growling, using her pelvis to add strength to her thrusts, her eyes shining with the metallic glint that made her emerald eyes brighter. When the palm of Lexa’s hand rubbed against the erect clit, Clarke’s body went taut, her face looking at the ceiling in a silent cry to the moon, fireworks exploding behind her eyelid. Slowing down slightly but refusing to remove her fingers from the warmth that was sucking them in, the student readjusted her grip before moving from the wall, the blonde still wrapped around her midsection, and laying their entwined bodies on the mattress.

The young hybrid, holding most of her weight on her left elbow, only gave her partner a few seconds to catch her breath before she started moving her hand again, slower but deeper than before. With the fingers curling every couple of thrusts against her spongy wall, Clarke moaned and shivered, words from all the languages she had learned in her long existence escaping her in an indistinctive mix, her arousal covering the unrelenting hand that brought her to a second climax in minutes. Her lover seemed decided to continue to ravage her for days on end, but the blonde regained enough of her senses to catch the slender wrist, and cautiously remove it from her folds. When Lexa growled at the interruption, she lifted the chiseled chin, forcing the green orbs to face her.

“Shh, _meine Geliebte_ , it’s my turn now,” she smirked, before rolling them over.

The brunette tried to keep control, chasing the pink lips with a whine, to no avail. Clarke was on a mission now, her own wolf coming out to play, and nothing could deter her from her target. Lowering herself on the muscular body of the former hunter, she left a trail of kisses and bruises on the breasts and pebbled nipples, the stomach, until she was faced with a trimmed tuft of hair. Staring at her soulmate with a ravenous smile, she darted her pink tongue and licked the glistering slit from bottom to top, making Lexa squirm in a search for more friction.

Paying attention to the noises coming from the brunette, Clarke used her arsenal of technic to bring her to the brink, sinking in with her tongue and fingers, lapping at the labia, suckling the swollen nub, until Lexa was putty in her hands and exactly where she wanted her. One last thrust, a well-timed flicker of her tongue, and the younger woman’s spine arched over the bed for a few seconds, before she fell back with a shudder, her eyes closed.

With a smug smile, the blonde crawled back towards the head of the bed, before pulling her lover’s upper body up so she was straddling the muscular thighs, their chest rubbing. Despite the strength of her orgasm, Lexa’s hips began to roll again, needy whimpers coming out of her throat.

“I know, my love, I know. One more, together,” Clarke cooed, bringing her hand to the brunette’s center while opening her own legs wider.

Their hands moved in unison, sinking into wetness, in and out at a regular pace, stretching the walls with a third finger, until they were both at the edge, panting in each other’s mouth, growls more than words. When sapphire and viridian glowing orbs locked, Clarke tilted her head to the side, offering her throat, and moved her lover’s hair over her shoulder. Nibbling at the skin, she sank her teeth at the junction of the neck and the shoulder, exploding once again when she felt the mirroring bite Lexa immediately responded with. That time, their climaxes carried on and on, multiplied by their werewolf connection, until they fell on the bed, passed out.

When they woke up, Lexa ran downstairs to get some water and food, before the urge returned, bringing their bodies together again and again. They both lost count of the number of times they sent each other over the edge, repeatedly reopening the bite on their respective shoulder so many times the brunette thought it would never close again.

On the morning of the fourth day, the fog of desire that had clouded their minds seemed to clear out, leaving them exhausted and happier than either of them had ever been. Clarke did not doubt that if they weren’t hybrids, they wouldn’t be able to move for a week, considering how vigorous and numerous their couplings had been. They had given themselves to each other entirely and without restraint, their emotions reinforced by the mating link now adorning their skin. The three days had been like nothing before, erasing all memories of her previous lovers and leaving her only with an insatiable craving for the beautiful green-eyed brunette that had turned her world upside down.

“Morning,” the young hybrid hummed, turning to face her mate.

“Morning, my love,” the blonde beamed before nuzzling the blemished throat, Lexa circling her body with an arm and pulling her closer. “How are you feeling?”

“Amazing. I don’t know if it is the result of mating with you, or if it is because I’m a hybrid now, but everything feels ... heightened? The colors, the sensations. It’s like I never realized I was seeing the world in black and white, and then suddenly you gave me a pair of glasses, and everything appeared as it should be.”

“Well, someone sure is a sap,” Clarke teased her lover, before bringing their lips together. “It is most probably due to your transformation, but I understand what you mean.”

“Do we have to return to your house soon?”

“Hmm... Yes, sadly we should. I would like nothing more than to remain here with you, naked and in bed, but we do not know when Nia will attack, if she does, and it is risky to stay here.”

“I know,” the brunette groaned, pushing herself on her elbows. “I guess the honeymoon is over, at least for now. We can’t ask our friends to keep patrolling the streets of Polis forever, can we?”

With a noncommittal noise, Clarke exited the bed to take a shower and assess the extent of the damage. Thanks to her nature, all the scratches and bites had already disappeared, except the print of Lexa’s teeth on her shoulder which she caressed with a tender smile. Though she had been sincere when she had told Lexa that she wanted her to enjoy her years as a human, she couldn’t deny that the day the brunette had decided to mate with her was the happiest of her long, long life. Whatever might happen next, with her soulmate fighting by her side, they would prevail. She was about to step in the shower when a loud curse coming from the room surprised her.

“Is everything all right, Lex?” she inquired, poking her head around the door.

“I just realized we’re gonna have to ask our friends to bring us clothes,” the brunette sighed, “since the ones we had are in tatters and I don’t really have any here anymore.”

Chuckling, the blonde closed the door and returned to her lover’s side. In for a penny, in for a pound after all. If they were going to get teased, they might as well indulge themselves one more time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gott! So gut! (Ger.) = God! So good!
> 
> Palawan is an island in the Philippines, and as been designated as the most beautiful island in the world several times. If you enjoy snorkeling, I strongly recommend it 😀


	24. Chapter 24

Only a few days had passed since Lexa’s transformation into a hybrid, and she already managed to have Lincoln on his back, yielding, her knee jammed into his throat. The pack had made it its mission to help her master her new abilities, and to their surprise, she proved to be one of the strongest fighters in no time. Whether it was due to her mating with Clarke, her past as a hunter, or simply some natural predisposition, the brunette could now beat most pack members fair and square, to Anya’s deep annoyance. Only Clarke, Bellamy, and Octavia, the oldest among them, were able to defeat her, and not without difficulties.

Once they were sure that she wouldn’t be a hindrance in the potential future battle, the eight hybrids left the house under the Argents’ care, and headed towards Canada. Though they could have easily run, it would still have taken them a few days, so in the end, they opted for two large and comfortable jeeps. Despite the circumstances, Lexa was happy to visit a new area of the US, and when she wasn’t curled against her mate, the young woman spent most of her time looking at the scenery. Autumn was well on its way; the red and yellow leaves shining in the sunlight, the air cold and crisp every time they lowered the windows.

The second day, they crossed the border without difficulty, and continued north, through the Canadian countryside. After driving nonstop for two days, they decided to spend the night in a hotel to rest and recharge before their possible confrontation with Nia and her pack. Clarke still hoped things could work out without resorting to bloodshed, but rationally, she knew that it was unlikely. The Ice Queen had been a thorn in her side for decades, with her ridiculous demands and brainwashing technic, and if she decided to fight them, her pack would die for her. No matter the fact that she could care less about their lives, and only turned them to strengthen her position.

Sensing the tension in her lover’s body, Lexa asked, “Clarke, are you OK?” once the two of them were situated inside the small hotel room, the queen-size bed way less comfortable than their mattress at home.

“Yes, I am simply thinking about what I will tell Nia once we see her. Now that you are a hybrid, I hope it will be enough to scare her and force her to back off if she truly was the one behind Ontari’s attack, but there is a strong possibility we will have to fight. Maybe we should have waited for the rest of the pack to join us, and for you to be able to fight in wolf form.”

“Hey, it’s gonna be fine. They might have the numbers, but we are stronger, right? And you mentioned she’s not so young anymore, so she probably won’t fight herself. Besides, I have a score to settle with Ontari.”

The following morning, the group continued its journey north, until they arrived in a small town where they decided to stop for lunch. They had barely gotten their food when a muscular blond with a scruffy beard and several tattoos entered the dinner. Nose in the air, the newcomer sniffed around for a few seconds, before looking towards them with a disapproving huff. Hands held visible in a display of non-aggression, somewhat mitigated by the anger that shone in his dark brown eyes, he informed them that the Ice Queen had heard of their arrival on her territory, and wanted to meet with them in a neighboring forest. Though she was aware that it could very well be a trap, Clarke agreed to the meeting, that would take place in the evening. At least they wouldn’t have to worry about hurting humans or been seen by them if things took a turn for the worse. Though hybrids inherited the vampires’ power of compulsion, it was a draining experience, and there was always a small risk of it not working and the person recovering their memories if they accidentally got in contact with magic.

After resting at the local inn for a few hours, the eight hybrids followed the directions given by the blond wolf, all the way to a forest of spruce and pines. The night had already settled in, bringing the temperatures down and lowering the visibility until the shadows of the trees looked like the monsters that often plagued children’s nightmares. Not for the first time, Lexa was grateful for the physiological changes the transformation had brought. Her body was running warm enough to counteract the chill, and she could see well despite the moon being in its waxing crescent. They had just entered a clearing when a cold, snarky voice came from the side.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Clarke and her mighty hybrids.”

Lexa turned her head slowly, not wanting to show that she had been surprised, and stared at the tall woman standing about 15 meters away from them, 12 wolves surrounding her. Her pale blonde hair, almost white in the moonlight, was pulled behind her head and supported a crown made of what seemed to be bones. From animals or humans, the brunette couldn’t tell, but based on what she had heard about the old werewolf, she bet on the latter. The strong facial features would have been beautiful, if not for the scornful smile and condescending look in her eyes. The Ice Queen embodied her title perfectly, she seemed in equal measures regal and cold, and she would have made an iceberg freeze.

“It’s been ages since we last saw each other,” the tall woman continued, staring at Clarke, “what brings you into my territory?”

“You know why we are here, Nia,” the blonde growled back, “you sent one of your lackeys to kill my mate. I came here to give you a chance to explain and relinquish your title, before blood is spilled.”

“Your mate?” the queen smirked, turning her attention towards Lexa. “Last I heard, she was a hunter, from a famous family who killed many of us in the past. A good hunter is a dead hunter, even you can’t deny that. I was merely helping take care of a problem since you seemed unable to do so yourself. How was I supposed to know that you are sharing a bed with our enemies?”

“So, you do not deny being behind the attack then?” Clarke stepped forward; her eyes glowing red in anger. “I do not know how you heard about Lexa, but you had no business in Polis in the first place, and yet you sent your mutt to kill her.”

“Oh, but Ontari is far more than a mutt,” the older blonde grinned, sending shivers down Lexa’s spine. If not for the hybrids’ light-speed reflexes, they would have been hurt when the giant black werewolf barreled through them, separating the pack of hybrids in its middle. Before they could regroup, a strange energy descended on the clearing, creating an invisible wall between them. Lexa found herself on one side with Raven, Bellamy, and Echo, while Clarke was desperately trying to reach her, Anya, Lincoln, and Octavia covering her back.

“ _Brujos_ ,” Raven muttered, sensing the coven members hidden behind the trees, chanting their spells in a language even she couldn’t understand. Things just had gone south quickly.

The pack had expected a trap when they received Nia’s invitation, and to be greeted by a somewhat large group of wolves, but they hadn’t anticipated witches to join the battlefield under the Ice Queen’s command. Though they were mortals and easily succumbed to physical injuries, powerful practitioners of the witchcraft arts could prove worthy adversaries, even for a hybrid. And a full coven backing up a group of werewolves could do tremendous damage.

With the pack separated in two and slowed down by spells and incantations, Nia’s warriors attacked. Clarke and her friends were faring fine, being much stronger and older than their opponents, but it was mostly a distraction, while Lexa and the others were the main targets. Some members of Nia’s pack hadn’t forgiven Echo for leaving them and mating with Bellamy, and Ontari seemed hell-bent on killing her ex-roommate. The large black wolf kept leaping at the brunette, her jaws snapping inches from her body each time. The former hunter, not accustomed to fighting in her canid form yet, was left to defend herself with the double swords Octavia had gifted her for her birthday. Luckily, her years of training were paying off, and Ontari was growing frustrated. She had clearly expected an easy victory, Lexa’s death incapacitating Clarke was the bonus Nia hoped for, but the young hybrid fought back valiantly despite being weakened by magic, exchanging claw marks for cuts and growls for snarls.

The fight continued for several minutes, a few members of the Canadian pack killed or mauled by angry hybrids, and yet Clarke’s family struggled to gain the advantage. The blonde wolf bit through thick fur and tore throats open, but her main concern was her soulmate on the other side of the invisible partition. Anya and her two partners were holding their own, and once again she was in awe of the Woods siblings’ natural abilities. On the other side, she noticed Echo and Bellamy fighting back to back, while Raven, fur puffed, made sure no one could sneak behind Lexa. Refocusing on the battle, Clarke tried to leap towards Nia to end it once and for all, but a well-aimed spell pushed her back, making her dizzy. Growling, she got back on her four legs, panting. Bringing only part of her pack had been a mistake, and she began to fear what it might cost her. They hadn’t lost anyone yet, but she could feel her friends’ tiredness in her bones, and new members of Nia’s pack kept appearing among the trees, replacing their fallen comrades.

Suddenly, cries echoed through the forest, and the wall that had separated the group disappeared. Jerking her head to the side, Lexa saw three werewolves barrel through the coven, breaking their focus and snapping at their throats, silencing them forever. Once they were done scaring the witches away, they took position around Lexa and Clarke, protecting them, a red-furred hybrid standing to the brunette’s right.

The blonde had never been so happy to see Monroe, Murphy, and his mate Emori. She had managed to contact the redhead once they had passed the border, informing her that they were on their way to meet Nia and asking her to follow them discreetly, but she hadn’t expected the extra reinforcements. Though they weren’t the strongest fighters, the two mates were cunning and determined, and they might just have saved their lives.

 _We need to leave, more might come_ , Murphy warned her. The man was one of the leanest wolves she had ever seen, and used to be bullied in his previous pack before he ran away and met Emori. The woman, despite her own complicated past full of sadness and abuse, was the first one to show him kindness, and they had been inseparable ever since. They weren’t always the most reliable members of her family, prioritizing their own survival over everything else, but Clarke was beyond grateful for their timely intervention.

 _Retreat_ , the blonde ordered, before their adversaries could regain their senses and trap them once more, as she could already hear Nia shouting orders.

The 10 wolves took off as one, limping away, Lexa on Clarke’s back. The brunette would have needed more time to turn than what they could afford in their present situation, and in that form, she was free to use her blades if need be. Luckily for them, Nia’s fighters rapidly gave up the chase now that they didn’t have the witches’ support, and the hybrids made it back to their vehicles in no time. Turning back into humans in seconds, the pack jumped into their jeeps, and headed immediately for the border. They had managed to weaken Nia’s troops, but the fight had been far more difficult than they had expected it to be. Most of them sported nasty wounds and bites, especially Echo and Bellamy, and they had to exchange blood with their mates to speed up the healing process. They remained quiet for hours, tension thick in the jeeps. They only stopped once they were way past the border, and decided to spend the night in a hotel. Being less tired and hurt than their friends, Murphy, Emori, and Monroe offered to keep watch while the others took a well-deserved rest for a few hours.

Once they were alone in their room, Lexa tried to discuss what had happened with her lover, but the blonde was too furious at herself to remain rational, and in the end, the two women went to bed in silence. The older hybrid, blaming her lack of preparation and overconfidence for the debacle, turned and turned on the too-soft mattress, unable to sleep, until the brunette pulled her in her strong arms, and caressed her hair, whispering sweet nonsense to calm her.

The following morning, the pack left early and drove fast until the evening, putting more distance between them and the threat they had underestimated. They all breathed more easily after passing the sign saying “Welcome to Polis” and the threshold of their house. Now came the time to lick their wounds and prepare for the final battle. They wouldn’t be caught off guard again. 

Wolf Murphy

Wolf Emori

Wolf Monroe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brujo (Sp.) = male witch, sorcerer


	25. Chapter 25

At the hybrids’ house, the atmosphere was tense and heavier than usual. After giving everyone a few hours to rest and change, and for the Woods sisters a chance to catch up with their aunt and uncle, Clarke called them all in the living room. The blonde was pacing, more nervous than Lexa had ever seen her, and though she relaxed somewhat when the brunette squeezed her hand, her shoulders remained stiff.

“First of all,” Clarke began, her voice quivering a little but her eyes stayed firm, “I would like to apologize. In my haste to deal with the issue at hand and protect my mate, I led you unprepared into battle, and put your lives at risk. I truly believed that Nia, if she was the one behind Ontari’s attack, could be reasoned with or scared off, but I should have known better.”

“Clarke,” Bellamy interrupted, standing from the sofa he had been sitting on, “none of us blame you. We followed you because we agreed with your assessment and plan; you didn’t force us. I would have done the same thing in your position.”

“I spent years with Nia,” his mate spoke, “and though I knew she was in contact with witches, I had no idea they would fight for her. We were all blindsided here, it isn’t on you. Clearly, she’s been planning something for a while. She won’t catch us by surprise again, but we’ll need help if we hope to defeat her.”

“I am already ahead of you on that point,” Clarke sighed, her hand still firmly in Lexa’s. “I called back the rest of the pack. Some will need a couple of days to arrive, as they were in the far countryside of Asia and Europe, but they are on their way. I also contacted the witches we have been working with recently, they will meet us once all our friends are here.”

Lexa’s ears perked up at the announcement, and she was looking forward to spending time with Harper, Monty, Maya, and Jasper again. Since her first encounter with Clarke, she had met many members of her pack, especially during the battle in Mount Weather, but there were still a few hybrids she had never seen. Though she was sure Clarke had informed them of the latest developments and their mating, she couldn’t help but wonder how they would react and behave towards her. Her mate was really treating Nia like an enormous threat if she was willing to pull away the hybrids from all the corners of the world and summon them to Polis.

“If I may,” Indra stepped forward after having a silent conversation with her husband, “Gustus and I discussed something while you were all away. We want to help you, not just protect our nieces, but also put an end to Nia’s threat. Since it seems like this is turning into a full-on war, we would like to accompany you next time you go to Canada, and fight by your side.”

“That means a lot, Indra,” the blonde replied with a frown, “but the threat she poses is like nothing you have ever encountered. Her pack is larger than usual, and Ontari is almost as strong as one of us. Not to mention the witches who will surely stand by their side again. This will be different from tracking a rogue individual as hunters are used to doing. I know you are both among the best of your people, but I cannot in good conscience bring you to a fight where you would be at such a disadvantage.”

“We know,” Gustus nodded, standing by his wife with a hand on her shoulder, “which is why we would like you to turn us into werewolves.”

Lexa’s head jerked so fast she heard her neck popped, making her grimace. Next to her, Clarke had yet to pick up her jaw from the floor, as did most hybrids sitting or standing around the large well-lit room. To her surprise, only Anya didn’t seem taken aback at the request, but merely waiting for Clarke’s answer.

“Did you know about this An?” she interrogated her sister, hurt at the thought of the three of them discussing something so important without informing her.

“No. But that’s what I would do too if I were in their shoes,” the tall blonde admitted, before adding with a shrug. “Don’t look at me like that. That’s what I would have done to protect you, Squid, if I wasn’t already a hybrid.”

“I understand where you are coming from,” Clarke said after a moment of silence, looking at the Argents, “and I would be honored to count you among my pack, but you are aware that it would be permanent, aren’t you? You would not be hunters anymore. Once you turn, there is no going back.”

“We know. To be honest, I can’t imagine living forever,” Gustus replied, “which is why we talked about becoming werewolves, not hybrids. This isn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. We’ve been discussing it for a while, ever since Anya became one of you and Lexa was kidnapped. We know what it will cost us, but our girls’ safety comes first. All of yours in fact, since you are family too by now.”

There wasn’t much left to say after such a heartfelt speech. Clarke feared some of her friends, especially Murphy and Emori who had suffered much at the hands of previous hunters, would oppose her decision, but even the couple had warmed up to the Argents. And if there was one thing wolves and hybrids understood above all, it was loyalty to one’s family, whether it was a biological or a chosen one.

The next few days saw the house turn into a beehive. After Indra’s and Gustus’s transformation, the pack helped them, and Lexa, get used to fighting in their wolf form. The bone breaking and remodeling themselves part of the process remained painful, but thanks to the years they had already spent training, the three most recent members of the pack made rapid progress. As they could have guessed based on his stature, Gustus turned out to be a very large, dark brown wolf, with orange eyes and impressive teeth. Indra was much smaller, but Lexa and Anya had learned a long time ago not to underestimate their aunt. After all, she had become a hunter out of sheer strong will, not being born with the same natural abilities as them. What she lacked in terms of physical abilities, she compensated with resilience and cleverness.

On the eve of the fourth day, the pack was complete. The 25 hybrids were finally reunited, and those who hadn’t met the Woods and the Argents yet welcomed them with open arms. When a lean blonde entered, her features hidden under a hood, Lexa tensed for a second, until Clarke hugged the woman, a large smile on her face, and introduced her to the group.

“My friends, this is Niylah. She is a very powerful witch, and a long-time friend and ally. In fact, her coven is the one we can thank for the cloaking spells on this house.”

Though perfectly innocent, her lover’s statement rubbed Lexa the wrong way. There was something in the way they moved around each other that hinted at a connection, a physical proximity Clarke didn’t have with her pack members. She put her observation in a corner of her mind, promising herself to revisit it later with her mate. For now, they needed all the help they could get, and she greeted the witch with a forced smile. Despite her reservation, the brunette had to admit that Niylah seemed to be a kind, gentle soul, who looked ecstatic to hear that Clarke had finally found her soulmate and congratulated them warmly.

The house’s occupants didn’t go to bed until the early morning, strategizing and sharing their impressions and memories of the previous fight with Niylah, so she could decide how to better counteract the magical effects that had weakened them. Echo did not doubt that this time, they would have to travel farther north, all the way to Nia’s stronghold. The Ice Queen would expect a full attack in retaliation for the trap she had caught them in, and it was where she was the strongest. When Niylah left, she promised them to return within two days with the rest of her coven and protection spells ready. Once everyone had made their way to their rooms, taking advantage of the rest of the night to sleep and regain their strength before another day of training, Lexa exited the en-suite bathroom only clad in a towel, and let herself fall on the bed.

“Are you OK my love?” Clarke asked, sensing the tension that emanated from her mate’s body, still tense despite her ablutions.

“Hmm,” Lexa replied in a noncommittal fashion, before turning her head to face her lover. “So, Niylah? She seems nice. You have been friends for a long time? Can we trust her?”

“Yes, and yes,” the blonde hybrid replied with a smirk. “She is a very talented witch, and much older than she appears. Herbs and spells have granted her a longer life than normal humans. We have been friends for decades, and I do not doubt her loyalty. Besides, some of the witches working for Nia are probably coerced, and that is not something she takes lightly. She will help us bring her down.”

“OK, I trust you, even if I don’t know her. You two looked pretty close; I didn’t realize you have known each other for so long, and—”

“Lexa,” Clarke cut in, placing one of her hands on the defined jawline, “I will be honest with you so there is no misunderstanding. Niylah and I are friends, nothing more. We did share a bed a few times in the past, but that was a long, long time ago, and it won’t happen again. From what I understand, she is happily in love with someone and has been for years, and I am with you. You are my mate, and most importantly, my soulmate. There is no one else who compares with you, or who I wish to be with.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me,” Lexa apologized, the tip of her ears turning red with embarrassment and arousal at the beautiful declaration. “You are the only one for me too. I guess I was just jealous, I’ve only ever seen you with the pack, she’s the first one of your exes that I’ve met. The fact that she’s known you longer than I have didn’t help.”

“You do not owe me an apology, I understand. To be honest, we may run into more people from my past one day, as some are still walking the Earth. But you have nothing to fear, I swear it. And you know me better than anyone, even though it has only been a couple of years since we met.”

“Besides,” the blonde added with a teasing smile, caressing a strong arm before pointing at her breasts, “I quite enjoyed seeing jealous Lexa. It makes me want to remind you how much you mean to me, and whom these belong too.”

“Mine,” Lexa growled, rolling on top of the blonde, her eyes glinting.

With the whole business surrounding Nia, the training and war preparations, and the arrival of the rest of the pack, the two women hadn’t been able to be intimate since their mating, and Lexa’s wolf needed the connection and reassurance. After receiving a nod from her mate, Lexa tore their clothes away and kissed her frantically, hands roaming all over the curves and muscles that shuddered under her. Understanding her lover’s craving for control at that moment, Clarke let the brunette claim her, body and soul, encouraging her between loud moans and expletives. Later, she would take her turn and explore every inch of the strong body moving against hers, reminding Lexa how much she enjoyed being on her back too. But for now, there were worse things than having her soulmate making her see stars.

Wolf Gustus

Wolf Indra


	26. Chapter 26

When morning came, one week after their first encounter with Nia, it brought a quiet acceptance into the hybrids’ home. The knowledge, acquired after centuries of battles and hardships, that some of them might not return; that even if they were to win, precious supernatural lives would be lost, weighed heavily on their shoulders. And yet sadly, they all agreed that Nia had to be stopped before she became more powerful. They had the option to wait patiently until she died of natural causes, if nothing else, in another 40 to 50 years. But in the meantime, the damages she could do, both to their pack and to the humans, were considerable. Clarke did not doubt that, faced with her own mortality and the ticking clock, the Ice Queen would go to any length to force the blonde to turn her into a hybrid.

The mates had spent their last night together, reaffirming their love and promising to keep each other safe. More than one couple sported renewed bites on their throats, and no one dared to mock the displays and the tender words exchanged more publicly than usual. Even Gustus and Indra, though reserved in their affections, weren’t immune to the atmosphere and walked hand in hand.

When a knock resonated against the wooden door, it indicated that it was time to leave. Niylah’s coven was waiting for them, as promised, their hands full of supplies and esoteric items. The witches had prepared shielding spells and healing potions to counteract their opponents, and ensure that the hybrids wouldn’t be weakened as they had been during their first encounter with Nia. Clarke had sworn to them that they wouldn’t be in danger at the forefront, and that they could remain hidden at the back, as long as their spells were able to reach the pack. Lexa nodded at the blonde witch; all jealousy forgotten when she spotted her kiss a curly-haired redhead with dark brown eyes.

As one, the pack and the witches got into several large cars, leaving Polis in a quiet line. With Gustus at the wheel, Indra next to him, Lexa was free to let her head rest against Clarke’s, the blonde fidgeting on the back seat, Anya and Raven behind.

“Are you OK _mon amour_?” the young woman asked, taking a smaller hand into hers. Ever since she had gotten to know Clarke and her story better, she was still fascinated by her hands. Despite the countless years and battles they had taken part in, they remained flawless, and capable of creating absolute masterpieces. The day her lover had shown Lexa her private collection, safely hidden in a temperature-controlled room, she had wept at the beautiful paintings and drawings stored there. She had promised herself that, one day, she would persuade the hybrid to organize her own exhibition and share them with the world.

“ _Ja_ ,” the blonde replied pensively, before adding in a hesitant voice, “any chance I can persuade you to stay at the back and protect the witches?”

“Not unless you are willing to remain there with me,” Lexa replied with a knowing smile, finally understanding her mate’s efforts to keep her away from danger.

“So, Clarkita,” Raven interrupted, “where will you take Baby Woods once all of this is over? You still haven’t really celebrated your mating. Anya and I are thinking about a trip around South America. So many romantic spots; I can’t wait to see this one in a bikini.”

The blonde grumbled at her friend’s usual lack of tact. Trust her to mention their respective relationships in front of their mates’ parental figures, who were both pretending to focus on the road and ignore the conversation happening behind them. Anya rolled her eyes when Lexa chuckled, replying that her sister wouldn’t be caught dead in a bikini, and that she hated the beach on the ground that sand had a nasty habit of getting EVERYWHERE. Based on Raven’s reaction, the Latina hadn’t been privy to this information, and she threatened to seriously reconsider their mating if Anya didn’t accept to accompany her to the beach at least once a year. Lexa, grateful for the distraction and silly conversation in the midst of all the tension, raised an eyebrow in surprise when her sister didn’t vehemently refuse, and just shrugged. Who would have known that the proud and unyielding former hunter would meet her match in the smart and blunt dark-haired hybrid who loved nothing more than to give her a run for her money. The brunette had been surprised at first when she had learned of their relationship, but after seeing them together, she had to admit that they were very good for each other, balancing their qualities and shortcomings. Not to mention the heart eyes involved when they thought no one was watching. And then they dared to mock her and Clarke... Pot, meet kettle.

The rest of the journey to the border happened in a similar fashion, conversation flowing easily between the six persons, who were very much a family by now. Indra and Gustus shared stories of their past and training with the sisters’ parents, making them laugh at all the shenanigans they had engaged in. To Clarke’s chagrin, Raven told them about the time the blonde had partaken in a party in Versailles, and had gotten so drunk she had accidentally stolen a carriage and caused a major diplomatic incident with the foreign ambassador to whom the vehicle had belonged.

After entering the Canadian territory, the travelers parked in a deserted area surrounded by a forest where they would be able to leave the cars for a few days. They had decided this time to approach Nia in their wolf form, so they would be ready for a fight, and Lexa, Gustus, and Indra wouldn’t be caught in the middle of a battle without having time to turn. From there, it would take them two days to reach the Queen’s stronghold, in the middle of the Northwest Territories, covered in snow at this time of year, and the hybrids would have to carry the witches on their back. 

They ran through the Canadian countryside with very few pauses, only stopping to relieve themselves and hunt some food. Many small animals fell victims of the pack, but it was the couple of moose they sank their teeth in that excited them the most, as the large mammals presented a challenge of good coordination and tactic. It marked the first hunt Lexa, Gustus and Indra officially took part in, and their new family made sure to celebrate it by giving them the choice cuts. Out of convenience, the pack remained in their wolf forms to eat, leaving the witches to start a fire and cook their meat under the cover of large rocks.

On the afternoon of the second day since they had left the cars, the witches began to cast spells, hiding the wolves’ scents and shielding them from magical attacks. Though Clarke and Echo doubted they would be able to sneak up on Nia unnoticed, every kilometer they could cross without her knowing gave them a small reassurance. Sparks and light-colored gushes of wind were flying around, signaling the coven’s actions, and the hybrids had to force themselves to continue forward and ignore the chants of their strange passengers.

The dawn was approaching when they finally spotted the Ice Queen’s fortress, a medieval-looking building carved in a mountain and surrounded by ice walls, a large plain separating it from the forest. In truth, the oldest members of the pack had to admire the details of the replica. For a second, they had thought themselves back in Europe, where one can still visit some castles dating back to the Middle Ages. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that someone as egotist as Nia would want to live in such a place, no matter how cold and uncomfortable it had to be. Werewolves ran hotter than most people, but Clarke could only imagine the amount of magic the witches had to exert in order not to freeze, comforting her in the idea that they were probably not living there of their own volition. The group stopped near the edge of the forest, letting their passengers dismount, and they nestled against each other to wait for the sunrise. The wolves could have fought in the dark, but their human friends would aim their spells better if they waited for the shy sun to appear above the horizon.

A couple of hours later, it was time for the final battle. Leaving the witches under the cover of the trees and undergrowth, the pack emerged, snouts high in the air and ears perking at the slightest sound. They could feel the cold air around them tingle with the spells muttered by their allies, and Clarke had to remind them to stay focus on the objective. They were almost halfway to the castle when the ground suddenly caved under a hybrid, giving the male just enough time to jump to the side. Looking carefully over the edges, they noticed the sharp stakes hidden at the bottom of the hole that would have impaled the wolf, killing him or leaving him seriously injured.

 _Careful_ , Bellamy warned, _we should walk in a line, to lower the probability of getting caught in a trap._

The pack nodded in approval, and didn’t waste any time forming a single file, Monroe at the head, her snout razing the snow. The young redhead, more accustomed to the Canadian scenery and winter than her packmates, would have better chances of uncovering traps before they sprang. The cautious approach slowed them down greatly, but they managed to avoid two more pitfalls and a few mines. They were only 30 meters or so away from the main entrance when it burst open, revealing a smirking Nia.

“Well, well, back already? Your last defeat didn’t suffice?”

Clarke and her pack mates growled at the old werewolf who held her head high, challenging them to come closer. They could hear the witches chanting, hidden behind the ice walls, and mentally thanked Niylah and her friends for their protection. Contrary to the previous time they had faced the Ice Queen, they didn’t feel themselves become weaker, their bodies heavier under the pressure of the spells. It seemed that Nia quickly realized that too, as a grimace deformed her features for a second, before she recovered with a scornful smile.

“I see you have brought some friends too? Smart. Too bad they won’t be enough to save you.”

 _You have threatened my family for the last time, Nia_ , Clarke thought aloud, her blue eyes shining with anger.

Communicating telepathically with werewolves from another pack was more difficult, and required experience. But Clarke, as she often had to do so to keep the peace, found it second nature by now. The smile grew on Nia’s face, revealing her sharp white teeth.

“Funny you talk about family,” she replied, “as I have a surprise for you. A gift, really, since from what I heard, you haven’t seen each other in a long time. What a daughter you make, tsk.”

Understanding flashed on the blonde hybrid’s face, and yet she didn’t have enough time to scowl her features before a large man brought forward someone she hadn’t crossed paths with in decades. Marcus. Her vampire sire, or the closest thing she had to one, and the man who had treated her like his own daughter for centuries. As she had grown busy with her pack and the threat of the Reapers, they hadn’t been in touch much. The last time she had seen him, he was planning to go to Europe, and that had been before World War I broke. In lieu of his usual suits and expensive shirts, he was dressed in torn clothes, his beard and hair unkempt, and a haggard look in his red eyes. His skin, even paler than usual, sported the long black streaks typical of starving vampires. Clarke could only imagine how difficult it had to have been to capture a vampire as old as Marcus, who preexisted the Julian calendar; and Nia clearly hadn’t fed him since in an attempt to keep him weak and manageable.

 _Clarke, what do you want us to do?_ Lexa asked, having guessed who the man was and how his presence in the hand of her enemy put her lover in a difficult position.

The blonde gritted her teeth, and kept quiet, thinking. The sun, albeit weak in the Canadian winter, was already up, making it impossible for her old friend to escape the castle. She did not doubt that Nia’s pack was armed with wooden stakes, ready to plunge one in his chest if she ordered the attack. Various plans and ideas swirled in her head, but none of them guaranteed Marcus’s safety.

“So, what is it going to be Clarke? Will you willingly give me your blood, or must you say goodbye to the last parent you have?” the Ice Queen demanded, the snarky smile on her face showing that she knew she had the upper hand.

“Don’t,” Marcus grunted, standing taller despite the tiredness and hunger in his bones.

 _Marcus, I—_ Clarke shook her head, not ready to lose another family member. Not one she could save, not the last link connection she had to her parents.

“Don’t!” he shouted, before shaking his body so violently that the werewolf holding him let go in surprise, and sprinting through the plain.

 _Marcus!_ the blonde thought as she howled, tears in her animal eyes when the body of her vampire sire caught on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Julian Calendar was introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, which would make Marcus over 2,000 years old.
> 
> Ja (Ger.) = yes


	27. Chapter 27

Both packs stared silently at the running vampire, flames and smoke coming off his body at an alarming rate. The older a vampire was, the longer they could withstand direct sunlight. Marcus, being over 2,000 years old, should have been able to last a couple of minutes, but in his starved and weakened state, he only had a few seconds left before he would entirely combust. Thankfully, Lincoln shook himself off his shock and leaped forward, meeting the man torch halfway. The large black wolf tackled the vampire to the ground and used his large furry body to cover him from the light and smother the flames. The hybrid groaned as the fire licked his belly, but he stayed immobile, knowing that he was the only thing stopping Marcus from meeting his true death. A second later, both groups erupted in shouts and ran to face each other.

Thanks to Niylah’s coven, the hybrids could feel the pressure of the enemy spells against them, but they remained unaffected. Nia’s wolves hadn’t anticipated Clarke’s pack would be at full strength, and more than one died during the first attack before being able to do more than growl. Still, Nia’s group was the largest by far, and the hybrids were all facing two or three opponents.

The icy plain turned into a battleground, blood splatters and cries coming from all directions. Most fought in pairs, their mates covering their backs while they faced Nia’s wolves, exchanging bites and claw marks without mercy. Even Gustus and Indra, who were only werewolves, and new ones at that, fared well, and the duo made several adversaries eat dust. Nia was growing impatient, barking orders from the entrance of her castle, but carefully staying away from the fights. Sensing that the pack wouldn’t concede as long as she was alive, Clarke and Lexa jumped over their closest opponents, and made a dash for her.

The Ice Queen had anticipated such a move, and expected her witches to erect a wall between her and the hybrids, but to her surprise, nothing happened. Clarke would have barreled into her if not for Ontari, who jumped out of nowhere and placed herself between her queen and the two hybrids. Nia would have to punish the witches for this betrayal, but first, she had a difficult fight ahead of her.

*****

Back on the plain, most pack mates were fighting around Lincoln, protecting him from the oncoming attacks. Octavia, Bellamy, Echo, Monty, and Harper were planted all around his leaning form, stopping any wolf from getting too close. One sandy male managed to claw at Bellamy’s face, hitting his eye, and the gray hybrid howled in pain. With a terrifying grin pulling at his chops, he approached the bleeding hybrid from his blind side. However, before he could injure Bellamy further, Echo jumped on the wolf’s back from the side, and firmly closed her jaws on his neck, snapping it in seconds. Her mate, blind from one eye but still capable of fighting, headbutted her gently as a thank you, and resumed his place in the circle. Given time, his eye would heal, but now was not the time to wallow or lower his guard.

Murphy and Emori, not the strongest combatants of the pack, were running around, finishing any wolf who tried to return to the castle, and preventing Nia’s men from getting too close to the witches hidden in the forest. A large wolf eventually noticed their behavior and came right at Emori, forcing her to stand her ground and fight lest he would target their allies. By the time Murphy came to her help, Nia’s man had closed his jaws on her left foreleg, going through the bones and the muscles with a loud snap. The lean hybrid tore his throat out, but the damage was done, and he had no other choice but to leave the battlefield and help Emori towards the forest, the black wolf hopping on three legs, the fourth one ending in a stump.

*****

At the entrance of the fortress, Clarke was fighting the Ice Queen, who had turned into a large white wolf, and remained oblivious to the recent developments and her friends’ injuries. The woman was old, but she was vicious and had led a life full of violence, and gave the blonde hybrid a run for her money. Both of them sported many bites and claw wounds by the time Clarke finally put her on her back with a powerful swipe that made Nia lose her footing and roll over. Jumping on her opponent’s belly, she held her down with one paw.

 _You should never have threatened my family, Nia_.

And with that last thought, the blonde closed her teeth on the other wolf’s throat, and ripped it open. She watched the spark of life disappear into the icy blue eyes, Nia gurgling until her dying breath, fear and anger alternating on her face. What a waste, Clarke thought, shaking her head.

Not far from the gruesome scene, Lexa was still battling Ontari. The large black wolf kept circling her, trying to take advantage of her experience, but the brunette was well aware of the danger this time, and she didn’t let herself get wrong-footed. Thankful to Lincoln for all the hours he had recently spent training her to fight in her animal form, she growled at her adversary, and charged. After a feint to the left, she sidestepped in a blink, and sank her canines into her opponent’s right shoulder, making her howl in pain. Ontari refused to back down, but with her limp, blood slowly mixing with the snow in a red mush, she was losing. In a last desperate attempt, she leaped towards Lexa, but the brunette was the fastest. Instead of catching her head front, she let herself slide on her back, paws up. With the momentum, Ontari scratched herself on the sharper than knives claws, her stomach bursting open and covering the chestnut hybrid with blood and body fluids. When she got back on her feet, having turned back to her human form under the shock of Ontari’s brutal demise, Clarke was already holding her.

“Lexa, look at me. Are you well? Did she injure you?” the blonde asked, wiping the red liquid from her lover’s face and cupping her cheeks.

“I’m fine. Nothing that won’t heal in an hour or two.”

Letting out a deep breath with relief, Clarke hugged the brunette tightly. The fight outside was not over yet, but their pack was winning, and they had finally put an end to Nia’s reign of terror. She was about to suggest they returned to their canid form and finish their enemies, when Lexa suddenly fell on her knees with a cried, “NOOOO” that froze the blood in her veins.

*****

About halfway between the castle and Lincoln’s lying form, Anya and Raven were caught in a fight against five werewolves. The two soulmates were standing tail to tail, their hackles up, white teeth shown in a threatening display. Three werewolves lay dead around them, but Nia’s pack was seemingly endless, and every time one fell, two replaced them. One of Raven’s hinder legs was bleeding, and Anya sported several wounds, though not too severe. Some of the spells created by Niylah were helping slow the blood loss and keep their stamina, but even then, they were both panting, their snouts covered in red. In a well-coordinated attack, three wolves managed to separate Raven from her mate by pushing her closer to the group, isolating the golden hybrid who was still defending herself left and right. Taking advantage of her now unguarded blind side, a strong dark gray wolf crept up on her, and jumped.

The assailant would have landed right on Anya’s back, his jaws at her neck, if not for the large dark brown body who rammed into him. The two males rolled in the snow, biting each other’s ears and fur with fury, tinting the white ground with red streaks. Anya wanted to help her uncle, but the two other wolves she had been fighting placed themselves between her and Gustus, forcing her to battle them instead. The former hunter had seen many fights in his lifetime, and he had taken well to his new form. Sadly, apart from Ontari who a true werewolf, Roan was the strongest member of Nia’s pack, and a skilled warrior. It only took a moment of inattention, a gasp coming from Anya that distracted him, and Gustus felt sharp claws dig into his neck, severing the jugular and trachea in one swipe. His large fury body collapsed on the cold ground, and before his eyes closed for the last time, he heard a cried, “NOOOO”.

Roan didn’t have much time to savor his victory. Nia’s son, unaware of his mother’s death, turned towards Lincoln and the rest of the pack, decided to go after the large hybrid, when a female black wolf jumped in front of him, fury in her dark orbs. She attacked him relentlessly, biting his shoulder, throwing snow at his eyes to blind him, pushing him away from the center of the battle. Thanks to her superior speed, Indra was harassing the stronger male, forcing him to make mistakes. After a minute, Raven, finally free of her opponents and noticing that Anya was almost done with hers too, came to the werewolf’s help. Between the two of them, they managed to corner Roan against a tree, and when he finally turned his head a little too far to growl at Raven, Indra took advantage of her smaller size, and slide on the snow until her jaws closed on his throat. With a snarl, she shook her head left and right, resisting his desperate attempts to dislodge her. Anchoring her paws deep in the snow, she pushed herself back up, and with one last jerk, she broke his neck.

*****

Once they realized their Queen, her son, and Ontari were dead, the remaining werewolves fled, many limping and bleeding severely. Clarke telepathically warned them that if they ever came after her pack again, she would hunt them down and kill them, but she chose to let them leave. Too many lives had already been lost that day.

Before she could join her soulmate and hold her while she grieved for her uncle, Clarke had one last thing to do. Sensing Niylah’s protection on her, she entered the castle, in search of the witches working for Nia. She found them all gathered in what looked like a living room, bundled up. When she entered, a tall curly-haired woman who had been comforting a little girl stood to meet her, and introduced herself as Luna, the leader of the coven. As they had suspected, Nia had forced them to work for her by kidnapping Luna’s daughter, Adria, and killing her husband. Sensing the end of the Ice Queen coming when the blonde went to fight her, the witches had lowered her defenses and weakened Nia’s pack instead of Clarke’s, helping them win. Understanding why they hadn’t had a choice, the hybrid offered them help in returning to a warmer place, and mentioned the presence of Niylah and her coven in the forest. Surely, the two groups of witches would get along better now that the war was over and that Luna’s people were free.

Now that she knew all danger was gone, Clarke headed for the plain that had seen so much horror in the last hour. Meeting her at the castle entrance, Echo reported a final count of 26 dead on Nia’s side, and 3 on theirs: Gustus, John, and Charlotte. Several hybrids were injured, the most severe being Emori who had lost her left foreleg and Bellamy who was blind on one side. Both would recover thanks to their mates’ blood, though regrowing a limb was a long and painful process. Marcus would have to remain lying under Lincoln until the sunset, but he was still alive — or as undead as a vampire could be. Clarke knew he had almost burned to ashes, and it would take him years to fully recover. He would have to stay at their house while he was too weak to feed himself.

With tears in her eyes, the blonde hybrid paid her respect to the bodies of John and Charlotte, two relatively recent members of her pack, before slowly approaching the small group gathered around Gustus. Indra, in a rare display of emotions, was lying on him, still in her wolf form. Clarke suspected that the woman found it easier to express her grief and hide her sobs that way. Or maybe she was simply too broken to bother turning back. Anya was crawled in Raven’s arms, her shoulders heaving rhythmically while the Latina stroked her hair. Lexa stood quietly, tears rolling down her cheeks, her breath catching every time she tried to swallow her saliva. Clarke stepped next to her, entwining their fingers, and it was all it took for the dam to break. The brunette turned around and threw herself in the open arms, nuzzling the blonde’s neck and covering her shirt with wetness.

Several hours later, the pack was done digging graves in the cold hard ground for Nia’s wolves. Despite the difficulty, they had chosen to bring the bodies of their three comrades back with them and to give them a proper sepulture in Polis, where they would be able to visit them. Luna and Niylah offered their help to levitate them and stop the decomposition process long enough to return home. The witches also helped them move Marcus, now that the sun was down, and the vampire didn’t utter a sound when they floated him off the ground, too weak as he was to stand.

They might have been the victors, but it was a sad procession that left the Ice Queen’s stronghold that evening. The journey home would be long, as they could only travel at night and counted several injured members. Lexa had yet to say a word, and Clarke walked by her side in silence, offering her mate a quiet comforting presence.

Wolf Nia

Wolf Roan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry 😢
> 
> Originally I was going to kill Marcus as well, but the loss of two father figures in one chapter was too much!


	28. Chapter 28

The journey back to Polis took seven days, and was done mostly in silence. The pack traveled in their animal form; with the witches on their backs levitating the three bodies of their fallen comrades, Marcus, as well as one of Nia’s former prisoners who was too injured to ride. Once they reached the city, the witches bid them farewell after Clarke had thanked them again for their invaluable help. Luna’s coven would eventually return to their hometown, somewhere by the sea, but for now, they agreed to stay with Niylah’s while they recovered from their captivity. The Ice Queen, as it turned out, hadn’t been a gracious host, feeding them only scraps and beating them up regularly when they showed a hint of defiance.

In the hybrids’ house, the pack prepared for the funerals, while Clarke carried Marcus to one of the guest bedrooms decorated with black curtains thick enough to prevent the sunlight from entering. The bearded vampire’s skin was covered in angry blisters and oozing wounds, his body more black and red than white. The blonde ran to the fridge to retrieve some blood bags — though the hybrids could survive without fresh blood, they enjoyed it from time to time, and they always had some ready in case they had guests — and helped her father figure sip on one before he fell asleep. It tore her heart out to see the strong and proud vampire reduced to a helpless mass of burned skin, weaker than a baby, but at least he was still undead. Though he would need protection and help for years, he would eventually return to his former self. The same couldn’t be said about the three bodies in their living room, and the thought brought tears to her eyes. Lexa and her sister did their best to put on a brave face, but they hadn’t completely learned to block their minds and emotions from the telepathic connection, and their pack mates could feel their agony as if it was their own. As for Indra, there was no need for a supernatural link to read the pain on her face.

Once the blonde was done, she let her old friend rest and joined the rest of her pack downstairs. Carefully lifting the corpses that had been wrapped in precious funeral shrouds, they carried them into the nearby woods, in a small clearing where several crosses already stood, some covered in moss, some more recent looking.

“What is this place?” Lexa asked, surprised to have never seen it before.

“Our cemetery,” her mate answered, holding her hand. “It is protected by magic so no human can find it accidentally. It is where we bury our pack mates who have been killed.”

Letting her eyes take it all in, the brunette noticed the three holes freshly dug, as well as two recent looking graves. Approaching slowly, she read the epitaphs. Atom. Fox. The two hybrids killed during their attack on Mount Weather. Noticing the question in the viridian orbs, Clarke explained.

“We burned their bodies because it would have been hard to carry them back here after the battle, but we brought their ashes with us so they could rest here, with the others.”

“All the ones you have lost are here?”

“Yes and no. We didn’t always have a body to bury, especially those taken by the Mountain. But we gave them a sepulture here anyway, so we have a place to visit when we want to. Once a decade, we gather and honor them. It is our way of remembering the ones who have fallen, until one day, maybe, we’ll meet them again.”

Lexa nodded quietly, soaking in the solemnity of the place, and its meaning for the hybrids. She guessed one of the tombs was Finn’s, Raven’s former mate, who had been lost to the vampires of Mount Weather, as well as several others over the previous century. When she noticed two old looking graves, so ancient she had barely seen them through the vegetation, she turned her head towards Clarke once more.

“My parents,” the blonde answered the silent question. “Obviously, their bones are not here, but I wanted to keep their memory nearby. They might never have been hybrids, but they were part of my pack. As was Gustus.”

The mention of her uncle’s name brought Lexa back into the present faster than light speed, and with it, the momentary distraction from her pain ceased. Lincoln had carried the large brown wolf to the clearing, and placed it next to one of the holes as gently as possible. Lexa, her left hand still holding Clarke’s, moved to stand by Indra’s side, while Anya leaned against the woman’s other shoulder. The three of them watched Lincoln and Bellamy lower Gustus’s body without a word, tears rolling down their cheeks and sobs racking their strong frames.

The ceremony was slightly different from those of humans, as the hybrids weren’t particularly religious. Instead of prayers, they told stories about the departed, eliciting laughs as well as tears. How they had met them, the good memories they had shared, the crazy situations they had found themselves into... Indra surprised her nieces by recounting how she had met Gustus during a hunt, while she was in the company of Alex and Elora Woods. However, it was when she mentioned his proposal, the giant of a man so nervous that he had held the box containing the ring upside down and stuttered so much she had been forced to finish the question herself before saying yes that they all swooned.

After the funeral, most of the pack members returned to the house, including Anya and Indra. Though she rationally knew that it wasn’t her fault, the tall blonde blamed herself for her uncle’s passing, as he had died saving her from Roan. Indra did her best to alleviate her niece’s guilt, but they both had a feeling it would take a long time before Anya could get over it. Lexa, needing a minute to gather herself, chose to remain outside and keep her soulmate company.

“What happens now?”

“I’m not sure,” the blonde admitted, still lost in thoughts. “This war is over; we can relax I suppose. But based on my experience, it is only a matter of time before another enemy or threat appears. It is best to make the most out of the peaceful time we have.”

“So, it will never end? We are only waiting for the next problem to arise?”

“It is frustrating, I know, Love,” Clarke sighed, rubbing her temples with her fingers. “It rarely gets as bad as it was with Nia or the vampires from Mount Weather, but rogue vampires and quarrels between packs of werewolves are common. That’s why I sent some members of my pack to different countries, they try to settle the disputes and issues before they snowball. Now that Nia is gone, they will soon leave Polis one more. But the supernatural creatures follow their own rules, and there will always be individuals who attempt to seize more power, more lands, or more followers. I am afraid we are quite similar to humans in that sense.”

“And you don’t want to rule over them all,” Lexa stated, remembering what Bellamy had once said.

“No, I do not. I have never wanted to behave like a queen to the sups, even when some encouraged me to. First of all, because I do not think I have the legitimacy to do so. Some vampires are older than me, and creatures who are more powerful. Why should being a hybrid put me above all the others? And secondly, even if I wanted to lead them all, many would refuse to bend the knee and abide by my laws. It would take a global bloodshed to make them all submit, and I do not have the will, nor the resources, to go that far.”

“I understand,” Lexa nodded, before placing her head against her lover’s shoulder. “We will find a way, together. No matter how long it takes, we will have peace, I promise. That’s the good thing about being immortal, right?”

“I love you,” the blonde whispered, kissing the crown of her mate’s head before nuzzling the chestnut locks.

*****

The following few days were spent in a subdued atmosphere, the pack mourning the loss of their friends and recovering from their wounds. The hybrids who had been injured during the fight were completely fine after a day or two, even Bellamy whose new eye was indistinguishable from the other. The only one who would need more time was Emori, as even with her mate’s blood, her forearm and hand could only regrow so fast.

As the house started to feel very cramped, most of the pack decided to leave Polis about a week after the funerals. They would spread once again to various continents, monitoring the sup population and ensuring the humans remained oblivious to their existence. Lexa was sad to say goodbye to Harper and Monty once again, and promised to visit them in Europe. In the end, only Emori, Murphy, Lincoln, and Octavia chose to stay, although Bellamy, Echo, Monroe, and a few others would only be about a day away from Polis.

Indra hadn’t had the heart to return to her house, now that Gustus was gone, and Clarke had offered her a guest room. With Raven and Anya living in the hybrids’ home, along with the blonde and Lexa, who had been forced to drop out from university after her confrontation with Ontari, the Woods’ house was now empty, but none of them could imagine moving back. For all the good memories the sisters had there, such as their respective matings and the years they had lived together, it also carried a lot of bad ones. The days Lexa had spent crying after her parents’ deaths, with Anya doing her best to comfort her; the sleepless nights when the blonde former hunter had wondered how she would manage to raise her sister all while protecting the humans from sups and working at the gym; and now Gustus’s absence. After some lengthy conversations, the siblings agreed to sell the property. They still owned several, thanks to their inheritance, but that particular one was too much to bear. They feared their aunt would decide to return to D.C., but Indra, not ready to be away from the only loved ones she had left, accepted Clarke’s offer and officially settled into the hybrids’ house.

The morning after the dark-skinned woman had transferred all her clothes and possessions into what was now her bedroom, Clarke found her in the garden, nursing a cup of coffee, and sat across from her. They engaged in an easy conversation until the blonde asked the question that had been at the back of her mind for a few days: would Indra want to become a hybrid?

“No,” the woman answered after a few moments of silence. “It’s not that I wish to inflict more pain on my nieces; they have had more than their fair share already. I simply can’t imagine living forever, not without Gustus. We might not have been soulmates, but he was the one for me. And whatever comes after this existence, I’d like to reunite with him eventually.”

“I understand,” Clarke replied, because what else was there to say? She wished to spare her lover and Anya the sadness that would inevitably follow the loss of their last relative, but as a werewolf, Indra would still live longer than humans do, and it would have to be enough. It would be selfish and cruel to force her to spend eternity without the love of her life. And when that fateful day would come, she and Raven would be there to help their mates grieve.


	29. Chapter 29

Four years had passed since the fight with Nia, and now that the two biggest threats they had encountered over the previous century were gone, the hybrids were enjoying a well-deserved peace. Most of them had taken advantage of the situation and decided to travel, and even the Woods sisters and their respective mates had made good use of their passports, though they were still based in Polis.

As promised, after another trip to Europe where they enjoyed themselves very much, Clarke brought her lover to some paradisiac islands where they did nothing except making love, snorkeling, and trying watersports. It came as no surprise that Lexa turned out to be very talented at all the activities she partook in, and Clarke, though as gifted as Lexa thanks to her hybrid reflexes, was happy to take photos and videos of her from the beach and send them to their family. Raven replied with photos of Anya and herself sunbathing on a private beach in Argentina, making Lexa do a double-take when she noticed the bikini her sister was sporting. The dark-haired woman had apparently won that fight, and Lexa now owed her 50 dollars. After taking a year off to fight the Ice Queen and mourn the loss of her beloved uncle, the brunette had returned to university and finished her undergraduate degree with an excellent GPA. However, she chose not to go directly to law school, as she wanted to travel with Clarke more and discover the world. She had all eternity to study after all, why rush?

The sun was about to set on a warm day of fall, and the sky was turning a beautiful shade of pink and orange. Under the red and yellow-colored trees of the forest near Polis, Clarke and Lexa were hunting. The two large wolves moved quietly among the vegetation, tracking down rabbits and small animals they would feast on before returning home. Although they could always buy their meat at the nearby supermarket, there was nothing quite as satisfying and instinctive as hunting. On occasions, they even let their prey escape after capturing them, as they weren’t hungry but sought the thrill of the chase. After being inseparable for six years and spending four of those either in their human or animal form, the two soulmates moved and reacted as one. While in the forest, they didn’t need to communicate telepathically anymore, as one could predict what the other would do before she even moved. Needless to say, very few animals managed to escape their sharp claws and pointy teeth. That particular night, they ambushed a couple of hares and shared a young wild boar before, still high on the adrenaline of the hunt, they made love on a bed of moss.

Upon their return, they had barely made it through the threshold that Raven greeted them. Over the years, Lexa had grown accustomed to the tan-skinned woman’s usual excitement, but her sister-in-law — she and Anya had eventually gotten married in a small ceremony the year before — seemed unable to contain herself, as she shouted almost immediately, “Finally you’re back! We heard there is trouble in Arkadia. Looks like a feral werewolf. A couple of people have been hurt already, though thankfully no one was bitten.”

The statement was received with a surprised look on both Clarke and Lexa’s faces. Feral wolves weren’t that common to begin with, as they usually lived in packs and took care of one another. And to have one so close to Polis, as Arkadia was only two hours away by car, was extremely strange. Although the hybrids tried to keep a low profile, even among the supernatural community, most knew that they had one of their bases in Polis, and that they didn’t take lightly on possible exposure to the humans. This meant that, it was either a recently turned werewolf who didn’t know about Clarke and the others or it was a creature with a death wish. And whichever it was, the threat was real and the hybrids needed to intervene quickly before humans noticed something was amiss.

Since they had become good friends over the years spent together at the house, Indra offered to remain behind and keep Marcus company, leaving Clarke, Lexa, Raven, and Anya to deal with the problem. The vampire had recovered most of his strength, thanks to the support and nursing of his blonde protegee, and could now provide for his own needs, but he had agreed to stay with them a little longer and get to know Clarke’s family.

The quartet readied themselves at once and left for Arkadia in their wolf form. The journey would take about three hours, meaning they would reach the city in the middle of the night. They were trotting among the fields and trees when Clarke lifted her head, admiring the stars and the white circle illuminating their way. It was the last day of the full moon, which might explain why the wolf was causing havoc. Although werewolves could turn at will, it was hard for new ones to resist the call of the pale celestial body, and they tended to get rowdier under it until they learned to rein themselves. The blonde hoped they would be able to subdue the creature without having to resort to killing them, as they were probably confused and scared.

The four women reached Arkadia, a middle-size modern city surrounded by a forest, as the clock struck 2 AM. The streets were deserted, making their life easier. The hybrids could always use their power of mind compulsion and make humans forget that they ever saw them, but it was troublesome and time-consuming. As they had discussed during their journey, they split up to cover more ground quickly; Clarke and Lexa took the east side and Raven and Anya the west. They would meet near the central square if neither group spotted the threat.

The blonde and the chestnut wolves walked side by side, using the shadows and the alleys to hide their presence; their large paws quietly hitting the pavement. They explored their side of the city for almost an hour without noticing anything strange, and began to wonder if the reports had been correct. Maybe it was the alcohol-induced confabulation of students combined with the sight of a large animal, possibly a real wolf. Before they could give up and head for the rendezvous point, Raven contacted them.

_We found him, on Maple Street, between the hospital and the orphanage. He’s heading north._

The two soulmates took off at once, aiming to get between the sup and the forest. They ran as fast as their legs could carry them, slaloming between the parked cars and the trash cans. Thanks to Raven's regular updates, they managed to stay ahead of the three of them, and after a sharp turn left, found themselves on a poorly lit street, a hundred yards or so away from Arkadia Hospital, in the outskirt of the city. They could smell the forest nearby, where the wolf clearly intended on hiding. Despite Clarke’s reluctance to hurt other supernatural creatures, they had to talk to him and calm him down. They couldn’t let him disappear and go crazy at the next full moon.

The two had barely had time to place themselves at the center of the street that a large sandy wolf came towards them, Anya and Raven in tow. When he noticed them, the male tried to skirt them by running along the building walls, but Lexa had anticipated his move and blocked his path. Instead of stopping like they would have hoped, the stranger surprised them by leaping over Clarke and continuing his dash. Raven and Anya didn’t even pause to talk to their pack mates and continued chasing after him, until Raven was able to push him towards a dead-end alley.

The cornered animal growled and snarled at the couple, refusing to back down, and he even tried to snap his jaws at the gray wolf. Anya, furious, knocked him over with a well-placed blow, and was about to tear out his throat when Clarke stopped her with a commanding voice.

_An, stop! I think he is just a child._

The blonde hybrid approached slowly as Anya was stepping back and the sandy wolf was rolling on his legs. He was large and tall, and appeared as big as an adult, but she could sense some immature thoughts and behavior in him. 

_Clarke, are you sure?_ Anya asked. _He is as big as us. He doesn’t look like a kid._

_Yes, I am sure. I can sense it. I think he is a true werewolf, that would explain his size and his aggression linked to the moon. We need to force him to turn back._

_Be careful love_ , Lexa told her, staying behind her mate as not to crowd the young male even more and push him to attack.

 _We do not want to harm you_ , the blonde telepathically spoke to the sandy wolf who remained in a fighting posture, his hackle raised. _We came to investigate reports of violence, but you seem to be mostly confused. Can you turn back so we can talk and I will help you control yourself?_

The stranger shook his head and growled at her. To an observer, he would have seemed threatening, but Clarke could sense the truth behind the appearances. The boy — because that’s what he was really, despite his size — was terrified of them and himself. Whatever had happened to his parents, it looked like they hadn’t been around long enough to teach him to control his wolf, and it had taken over. In her mind, the blonde thanked Marcus for his blood, which had not only saved her life and made her a hybrid, but had also made her life as a true werewolf much easier. Without it, she might have been like this boy, at the mercy of the full moon and of her emotions, struggling to rein herself.

 _What do we do? He isn’t responding well and doesn’t seem like he can return to his human form_ , Lexa told her.

Clarke hated what she was about to do, but there was no other option. They couldn’t stay around too long in their animal form and risk being seen by humans, or being injured by the young wolf. If he couldn’t control himself long enough to turn back, she would have to force him to do so. As a hybrid, and the original one at that, she was the strongest so-called Alpha that existed, and could theoretically impose her will on any werewolf, even a true one. She never used that ability, as it felt like a violation, not to mention it was painful on the recipient, but now wasn’t the time for half-measures. Inching her body closer to his, she locked her sapphire orbs into his paler blue ones, and commanded him.

_Turn! Return to your human form._

At first, nothing happened. And then, suddenly, the furry body began to contort and twist. The bones snapped, broke, and reshaped themselves, making him grunt in pain. One of the reasons Clarke had hesitated was that a forced transformation was much more painful, as the mind tried to resist and slow the process instead of embracing it.

 _Relax_ , she thought. _Do not fight it, please._

After a few long minutes, it was over, and in front of them, lying on the street, was the half-naked body of a scrawny young boy. He seemed to be about 10 or 11 years old, with slim limbs and a mop of hair as sandy as his fur had been. He had passed out under the pain, and his chest rose slowly with every breath, as if his lungs were struggling to remember how they worked in their human shape.

 _My god_ , Anya exclaimed, _he’s really just a boy. I almost killed him!_

“But you didn’t, that’s what matters,” Lexa replied, having regained her human form too. As gently as she could, she cradled the boy in her arms and lifted him from the cold ground. He didn’t even stir at her action, and would probably remain out cold for the rest of the night.

“What are we going to do? We don’t know where he lives, and even if we did, we can’t bring him back there. Whoever is in charge of him clearly can’t control him. They might not even know that he’s a werewolf,” the brunette said, looking at her pack mates in turn.

 _I agree_ , Clarke acquiesced after a moment. _Let’s bring him back home with us for now. We need to figure out his situation, and most importantly, we will have to help him gain some control, or the next time he turns, he might accidentally kill someone_.

Letting a deep breath out in relief, Lexa quietly agreed and situated herself on her mate’s back, the warm body of the boy carefully placed against her chest. The journey back home took longer, as Clarke tried not to jolt her precious cargo. The brunette on her back held the boy against her with one arm while the other was lost in the warm blonde fur of her lover’s neck. When they reached Polis and their home, Indra welcomed them with a look of surprise on her face at the sight of her niece carrying a young boy, but it was the small smile that followed that Lexa wondered about later on. 

Wolf Aden


	30. Chapter 30

The following morning, when the young boy awoke, he seemed confused and surprised to find himself in a foreign room, on a bed that wasn’t his. Lexa and Clarke had spent the night by his side, on the sofa, and they stood at once when they noticed his blue eyes looking around the room.

“Good morning,” Clarke spoke first, her voice gentle like one would speak not to frighten a wild animal. “How are you? You gave us quite a scare last night.”

“I—where I am? Who are you?” the sandy-haired child stuttered, pulling the bed sheet to his chest as if to protect himself. He was a far cry from the large terrifying beast that they had met the previous evening.

“My name is Clarke, and this is my partner Lexa,” the blonde explained, pointing at herself and then at her mate who was standing next to her and looking at the boy with a mixture of tenderness and pity in her viridian eyes. “You are in Polis, in our home. Do you remember what happened last night?”

“Not really,” the boy answered after a minute. “I have flashes, like a dream, or a nightmare. I thought I was running in the streets, trying to escape something. But it doesn’t make much sense. And large dogs were chasing me.”

“Do you have anyone we can call to let them know that you are here? Your parents or guardians?” Lexa inquired.

“My parents are dead,” he said, his head low and eyes slightly misted. Both women knew well the pain that came with losing your parents, and they approached him instinctively as if to hug him. They stopped themselves before getting too close, but he didn’t recoil. “I’ve never met them. I’ve been in the orphanage in Arkadia my whole life.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” Clarke replied with empathy. “We will sort it out. In the meantime, why don’t you go downstairs? I can hear the sound of breakfast being prepared. You must be hungry…”

“Aden.”

“Aden,” she parroted with a nod. “Just go ahead, we will follow you in a minute.”

Once the boy was outside the room, clad in the stained and holed clothes he had worn the day before, Lexa turned to face her soulmate.

“What are we going to do, love? We can’t bring him back there. They won’t know how to deal with him, and though he didn’t seem to be aggressive on purpose, he could be a danger to them.”

“I know,” the blonde sighed. “I suspect he does not know who, or what he is. If his parents died when he was a pup and he had no other family, then no one was there to explain to him that he is a werewolf. If he has never tried to turn of his own volition, that would explain why he was so out of control. The wolf broke out with the full moon and took over. It must have been a terrifying experience, poor child!”

“The orphanage warden might call the police once they realize he’s gone,” Lexa thought out loud, grasping the complexity of the situation they found themselves in.

“True. I will go there immediately with Raven and compel them all to forget about him. I do not like it, but we cannot take any chances, and he is too much of a danger right now, for himself and for others, to be allowed to return there.”

“OK. I’ll keep an eye on him and explain the situation to Anya and Indra. Someone has to make sure my sister is on her best behavior and doesn’t accidentally scar him for life.”

While Clarke and Raven left to carry out their mission in Arkadia and tight up loose ends, Lexa spent the morning with Aden. The boy turned out to be very kind and bright for his age, asking her plenty of questions about her life, her family, and her studies. It was difficult to answer some of them without revealing her true nature, as she wanted to wait for Clarke’s return to do so, but they bonded over the loss of their respective parents and their love of nature. The 10-year-old was giddy with excitement when she suggested they went to the forest for a walk. He explained to her that he had seldom been allowed to go into the woods when he lived at the orphanage, and he always felt them call to him. The blonde hybrid found them there a few hours later, exploring the undergrowth and tracking small animals, and she smiled at the memory of a time not so distant she had herself taught Lexa how to recognize the prints and the signs of the animals’ passage.

Despite their fears, Aden easily accepted the fact that he was a werewolf. He had had too many dreams of running around the forest on his four legs to be truly surprised at the news. When the two women revealed that they were wolves too, or at least partially, his smile and excitement grew, and he begged them to show him their animal form. Lexa was the first to turn, and as Clarke had done to her years before, the large chestnut wolf gently approached the boy and let him pat her neck and shoulders. When she nudged his chest with her wet snout and began purring, the smile on his face grew tenfold. He didn’t even flinch when Clarke transformed too, and he spent a great deal of time stroking their fur and petting them. Both predators rolled their eyes and growled without any threat in it when he asked if they could play fetch, but agreed nonetheless. After hearing his story, they knew that he hadn’t had a lot of joy in his life, and seeing him beam was such a reward that they didn’t have the heart to refuse him. And besides, they needed him to see that he didn’t have to fear the wolf inside him and, with their help, could learn to control it.

The next few days were spent making Aden feel at home. Clarke and Lexa set everything they needed to homeschool him — it wasn’t safe to let him attend a school before he could master the animal inside of him — brought him new clothes and redecorated the bedroom across theirs with the latest superheroes he was obsessed with. Indra was more than happy to make him discover a lot of French specialties she had learned to cook over the years, and dotted on him like one would a grandchild. Raven offered to help him with anything science-related and Anya improvised herself as a P.E. teacher, helping the boy burn the excess of energy inherent to his nature with long runs and hikes in the nearby woods.

Once they heard about the new inhabitant of the house, the pack members who were nearby, namely Lincoln, Octavia, Bellamy, and Echo returned to Polis to meet him. Aden seemed slightly overwhelmed at the sight of all those people who had heard a lot about him already, and needed to take a breather. Noticing his distress, Lexa pulled him towards his bedroom.

“Hey, are you OK, Aden? You look pale,” she asked after putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Yes, it’s just a lot to take in. A new house, new people. Everybody is nice and pays attention to me. I’m not used to it I guess,” he admitted with a blush, dancing from one foot to the other to hide his embarrassment.

Lexa’s heart ached at the admission, and she felt an overwhelming desire to hug the boy. Not wanting to make him even more self-conscious or scare him off, she abstained, but the intensity of the feeling surprised her. Though she had no doubt the people in charge of the orphanage had cared for the boy — and according to Clarke’s recounting of her trip there to erase their memories, they had — it was difficult to give children the attention and care they needed when you had over a dozen in your charge. The 10-year-old behaved gravely and maturely for his age, and he was used to flying under the radar most of the time. She knew it would take time and efforts to pull him out of his shell, but promised herself to be as patient as she would need to be with him.

“I can only imagine how it is to be in your shoes, but you don’t have anything to fear from any of us, I swear it. We are a pack, the ties between us are even stronger than those of a family, and you are one of us now. We’ll always have your back, OK?”

“Family?” the boy whispered as he valiantly tried to hold his sniffles and the tears that threatened to spill from his azure eyes.

“If that is all right with you, of course, then yes, we are a family now,” Clarke answered, walking into the room with a tender smile on her face.

Lexa telepathically thanked her mate for her intervention, as Aden’s emotional question had tightened her throat too much to allow her to say the words that she had wanted to tell him. No matter how many years they had been together or the fact that they were mated, she was still surprised on occasion to see how well Clarke knew her, and how the hybrid could sometimes anticipate her wishes and desires before she could formulate them. It shouldn’t have surprised her that the blonde would be on board with her idea to keep Aden with them, regardless of how rushed and crazy it might seem. She had, after all, saved many young werewolves over the years and turned some into hybrids. The pack used to joke about her propensity to “take in strays” and wondered how it was that there weren’t thousands of them by now.

A week or so later, after a long and emotional conversation, the couple offered to officially adopt the young boy. Despite his natural reserve, he threw himself at them and, his arms wrapped tightly around both their necks, sobbed heavily into their shoulders when he accepted. Lexa worried at first about the technicalities, but Clarke reassured her immediately that Monty had made a specialty of forging all sorts of official documents, and that a certificate of adoption would be a piece of cake for him. As it turned out, one major inconvenience when you lived forever was the need for paperwork and ID. As none of them could produce their original ones anymore, lest people might wonder what sort of moisturizer they used to look so young and fresh when they were over 100 years old, they had to rely on fake ones.

The other thing that the brunette somewhat feared was the conversation she needed to have with her aunt. She was, after all, only 19, or rather 23 now but would forever look like when she was 19, and Indra might express some concerns at seeing her young niece adopt a child. To her relief, the afternoon she managed to corner her aunt alone into the kitchen, the dark-skinned woman looked at her with a smirk and, before Lexa could speak, asked her, “So, are you here, all nervous and fidgety, to tell me than I can finally call this young man my grandson?”

Lexa’s eyes bulged out in surprise, and it took her a few seconds to recover enough that she could croak, “How did you know? We only just told him and haven’t talked about it with anyone else.”

“Alexandria,” her aunt replied sternly, “you forget that I’ve known you since you were a baby. You might be a powerful hybrid now, but your poker face is still terrible.”

“Besides,” she added looking outside the window as if lost in her memories, “your mother was my best friend. Anya takes mostly after your father, may he rest in peace, but you are the spitting image of dear Elora. I saw how you look at Aden, and she had the same expression when she was watching over you and your sister. I noticed it the moment you carried him back here, and every day since.”

“You don’t think I’m in over my head?” the brunette asked, wiping the few tears that had escaped from her eyes at the mention of her parents.

“If there is one thing I’ve learned while observing your parents taking care of you, and watching over you myself, it’s that no one is ever truly ready to be a parent. That been said, you might be young, but you are one of the most serious and responsible persons I’ve ever met, and I have no doubt you will be a wonderful mother. And the same could be said about Clarke. Aden is lucky to have you both.”

This time, the brunette didn’t even try to hold her tears back as they rolled down her cheeks, and she hugged her aunt as tightly as one could. And if she felt some wetness against her shoulder, neither of them mentioned it.


	31. Chapter 31

The next couple of weeks flew by, between Aden’s homeschooling and the rest of the pack calling on them regularly to hear all about him and how well he was settling in. Despite their initial fears, Lexa and Clarke were happy to report that the boy, now officially their son — or as close to officially as could be with a fake certificate — was doing great. The shy sandy-haired boy had always hoped to, one day, find a couple or a single person who would agree to give him a home and a family. Never in his wildest dreams, however, had he expected to find himself surrounded by so many people who immediately welcomed him as one of their own. He had gone from being an orphan to having two mothers, a grandmother, and a plethora of aunts and uncles who all seemed to find excuses to return to Polis and check up on the three of them. The constant attention was taking some getting used to, but the pack members showed him so much kindness right from the start that he was already seeing them as family.

His new situation would be perfect if not for one thing. As the full moon grew closer, his anxiety increased exponentially. He still couldn’t quite remember what had happened during the last one, but Clarke and Lexa had done their best to recount it to him, and he feared he would lose control again. Sensing his apprehension, the two soulmates led him into the forest one late afternoon, as the sun was setting, to help him turn. It was better to practice, before the pull of the moon made it impossible for him to rein the wolf inside. Unbeknown to him, his mothers brought him near the spot where Lexa had met Clarke as a wolf for the first time. The small clearing, located deep in the forest, was their special place, the one that they often visited when they wanted to be alone and reconnect.

“Aden, look at me,” Clarke said as she kneeled in front of the shaking boy, her hand taking his and her thumb rubbing over his knuckles to calm him down. “You have nothing to fear apart from the pain of the transformation, and you will get used to it with practice. The wolf is very much a part of you, it is not some sort of demon that takes over. You simply have to learn how to control it, and you will. Lexa and I are here, with you. We will not let anything happen to you.”

“I’m not scared of getting hurt,” he whispered, “I’m...”

“Scared of hurting someone,” Lexa finished, sensing where he was going. Kneeling beside Clarke to have her eyes at the same height as his, she continued, “Do you trust us? Because we won’t let that happen either, OK? I have no doubt you will be able to control yourself, but if you can’t, we will make sure to keep you safe and away from humans.”

Aden wasn’t sure he deserved the confidence his new mothers had placed in him, but he nodded nonetheless, reassured that they would be, at least, able to stop him before he could maul someone. Taking a deep breath, he asked, “So, how do we do this?”

“How about I turn first to show you, and then Clarke will guide you through it?” the brunette offered, before changing into her animal form when they both acquiesced. She purposely slowed down the transformation, making sure to show him how her body went through the change. It made the process more painful than usual, but she kept her groans to a minimum in order not to scare him. Once she was done, the chestnut wolf licked Aden’s face before sitting on her bottom, a smirk pulling at her chops.

The boy did his best to imitate her, but he screamed as soon as his legs broke. The first transformations were always extremely unpleasant for werewolves, and as it was his first voluntary one, tears soon rolled down his cheeks. And yet, he carried on, his teeth and fists clenched hard, whimpers escaping his lips every few seconds.

“I know Aden, I know, I am sorry it hurts,” Clarke whispered as she stroked his hair, her own eyes shining at the sight of the boy in pain. “Do not fight back, it will make it last longer.”

Lexa was whimpering too, clearly agitated, and she licked the boy’s face and body as if to take away the pain. The process lasted a few minutes and was agonizing for the three of them, until eventually, the sandy wolf stood on shaky legs, his tongue hanging from his open mouth as he panted heavily. Lexa nudged him gently with her head and proceeded to rub her chin against him in a comforting move. After petting him a little, Clarke hurried to turn too, and soon the three large wolves stood in the clearing, cuddling.

After a dozen minutes or so, the three animals separated themselves and began to move around the forest, snouts in the air and eyes looking for clues indicating the passing of other creatures. Once they found rabbit prints, the little family took off, silently jumping over roots and walking over fallen leaves. As it was Aden’s first official hunt, his mothers let him take the lead, gently giving him pointers and advice as they got closer to their targets. The young wolf, unaccustomed to his new shape and overexcited at being in the woods with his mothers, took off as soon as he saw a pair of ears sticking out of the undergrowth. The jackrabbit, sensing the ground tremble under the large paws, followed his millennia-old instinct and jumped out of the bushes before hopping away as fast as its hinder legs could propel it. Unfortunately for Aden, the animal’s lair lay nearby, and before the canid could catch his dinner the rabbit disappeared into a deep hole. With a pitiful whine, he returned to his mothers, his large furry head down and his ears hanging low.

 _Don’t worry Ad, we will find another prey_ , Lexa consoled him as Clarke rubbed his neck with her snout, making him chuckle.

It took two more tries, but the young wolf eventually managed to catch a couple of rabbits, which he proudly shared with his mothers under the moonlit trees. Clarke was very impressed to see how the boy, despite being a true werewolf, was able to stay in control and displayed little of their typical aggression. His gentle and empathic nature showed even in his animal form, and the blonde did not doubt that he would become a wonderful man and pack leader one day. Sensing that he had had enough excitement for one day and was ready to fall asleep on his four legs, the two women encouraged the boy to return to his human form before they went back to Polis. The process wasn’t much less painful than the first time, and by the time he was done, Aden was lying on the ground, shaking and panting.

“Shh,” Lexa cooed, having turned back into a human too so she could hug him, “it’s OK. You’re OK.”

Between the toll the transformation took on his body and the adrenaline of the hunt leaving his system, the boy was out like a light in a minute. Lexa secured him against her chest with one arm, the other holding gently onto the fur of Clarke’s neck, and the blonde wolf carried them back home with her heart so warm in her chest she felt it might catch on fire.

Aden barely opened an eye when his mothers helped him brush his teeth and get into his PJs, and all he could do was mutter a sleepy, “Goodnight” when he felt them both kiss his forehead before he was out again. Stepping back to the threshold, the two mates were looking at him with a tender smile on their faces when Clarke interrupted the silence.

“This is what I want to do.”

“Hm?”

“You remember, after the war with Nia, when you asked me what the future would hold?” Clarke said to the brunette, who nodded with her head cocked to the side, unsure where the blonde was going with this. “I still do not want to rule over all the supernatural creatures, but I want to help them, like we are doing for Aden, as I did for some of our pack mates before. Think of all the newly turned vampires and werewolves in the world who have no idea what they are, and create chaos. What if we could teach them, like we are doing for our son?”

“You mean, open a school of a sort?”

“Yes, something like that. Offer them a safe place where they could learn to control their abilities and feed themselves without putting humans in danger.”

“That’s very Charles-Xavier of you,” Lexa responded with a smirk, before rolling her eyes affectionally when she realized Clarke had no idea what she was talking about. Despite making immense progress catching up with modern times ever since the two of them had met, Clarke was still at times very behind on pop culture. “Never mind that, I think it’s a wonderful idea, my love. But how would it work?”

“This is simply the draft of a plan for now, but I was thinking of a magical place, accessible through portals humans cannot take. I will have to ask Niylah and Luna about the feasibility of such a thing. Our packmates are already roaming the Earth, as they have been doing for a long time, looking to resolve supernatural conflicts before they take an ugly turn. What if, instead of or on top of this, they sent towards us any alone new sup they found? Werewolves tend to be OK as they have a pack, but not all do. And young vampires are even more at risk of being left alone with no knowledge of how to be.”

“And you think that, by located them before they can go off the wagon and training them, we could prevent future conflicts?” Lexa thought out loud, confirming with her mate it was her intention.

“Exactly,” the blonde smiled. “The hope is that, with a more preemptive approach, we won’t ever have to track down a rogue vampire, or a feral wolf. Imagine what could have happened to Aden if Nia had found him before us. Or how Ontari’s life could have been different if she had met us first. What do you think?”

“I think you’re extraordinary,” the brunette replied, in awe of her mate’s kind heart, before bringing their lips together in a kiss a little too heated for their son’s bedroom. Sensing the mood change, her mate pulled to the privacy of their own room before they could scar him for life.

A few hours later, Lexa, naked as the day she had been born and wonderfully satiated, turned to face her lover. Their previous conversation still resonated in her head.

“So, once we manage to get this project off the ground, what will you do exactly? Teach the sups?”

“I suppose yes, or at least the werewolves,” Clarke replied thoughtfully. “Not every day, of course, but we could take turns if the others are interested. Based on how Lincoln and Octavia enjoyed training you, I am sure they would not mind doing the same for more wolves. I was thinking of asking Marcus to join too, his experience would be invaluable with new vampires. In fact, I realized that sometimes even young witches and wizards are born to non-magical families and require guidance. Niylah or Luna’s help would make a big difference for them.”

“I know you’ve been alive for a long time, and you’ve done so much for the world and our packmates, but you still manage to amaze me,” Lexa whispered, caressing the side of her soulmate’s face with so much love in her eyes Clarke had to hold back a tear. “I’ll help you in any way I can.”

“Thank you,” the blonde breathed out, relieved at the promise of support, before she rolled the younger hybrid on her back and resumed their previous activities. Come morning, she would let their friends know about her idea, and contact the witches. But now, and for a few more hours, there were more pressing matters at hand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter / epilogue is coming soon!
> 
> And yep, I totally borrowed the idea of a school from Charmed/X-Men. What can I say? I'm a teacher at heart 😁


	32. Epilogue - 200 years later

The sun was setting over Polis, coloring the sky in hues of orange and pink. A lone blonde wolf climbed the highest hill overlooking the city and its majestic forest, her large paws hitting the ground without disturbing the silence. Even after all these years, this was still her favorite time of the day, and she hitched to grab a piece of charcoal and sketch the view that greeted her at the top. She arrived just as the sun was halfway gone over the horizon, the shadow of her mate growing on the grass behind her. The brunette had heard her, of course, perks of being a hybrid, but she hadn’t turned around and continued to look over Polis, their home. Clarke let the transformation take her and, once she was back on her two feet, she flushed their bodies together, her front pressed against her lover’s back and her arms circling a slender waist.

“Hello, _meine Geliebte_ ,” she whispered into a small ear as her head rested on Lexa’s shoulder. “How was your day?”

“Good,” the younger hybrid replied with a smile, entwining their fingers. “I heard from Aden earlier, he said that his mission was a success, they learned where Edward’s lair is. It won’t be long now.”

“Finally. I can’t wait for this monster to meet his true death,” the blonde declared grimly, and Lexa pulled her so their lips could meet in a tender kiss.

A couple of years before, the two soulmates had rescued a 12-year-old who had just been turned into a vampire. They had rapidly discovered that her sire, a man by the name of Edward, enjoyed preying on young orphan girls, making them immortal and keeping them by his side for a decade or two before killing them to erase the proof of his abominable behavior. Luckily, the couple managed to save his latest victim, a young brunette called Madi, before he could do anything more than turn her, but he escaped before they could end him. As she would forever remain a preteen, Clarke and Lexa offered to adopt her without hesitation, and their little family grew from three to four people in the blink of an eye. While her mothers were teaching Madi how to adapt to her new situation in the school that they had built, her brother swore to put an end to the vampire’s sickness. He had been tracking him ever since with the help of Bellamy, Echo, and his soulmate Tris, an energetic and kind werewolf turned hybrid by Clarke upon their mating 50 years before. Based on his latest report, it would soon be over.

The sandy-haired young man was Clarke and Lexa’s pride and joy. Despite being a true werewolf, he had shown tremendous amounts of self-control and kindness, and became the heart of the pack in no time. On his 20th birthday and at his request, Clarke had made him one of them, as neither she nor Lexa could imagine losing their son to old age one day. And when the blonde had decided to take a step back to focus on teaching young supernatural creatures to master their abilities, he naturally had taken her place as head of the hybrid pack. When he wasn’t busy running around the world and making sure that peace prevailed, he spoiled his mothers and sister with gifts and stories of his adventures.

“How’s Madi doing today?” Lexa asked after a moment of silence.

“Very well. Though Marcus messaged me to complain that she pulled a prank on him in the early hours of the morning and spiced his daily ration of blood. I suspect she had help from Raven, as I cannot figure how else she could have had access to moonshine.”

“Sounds like Raven all right,” Lexa chuckled, shaking her head at her sister-in-law’s antics. The Spanish woman was over 800 years old now, but the passing centuries had done nothing to lessen her childish streak, and the time she spent teaching the young sups at the school certainly didn’t help. Lexa still wondered how, after over 200 years together, Anya hadn’t killed her yet. The almond-eyed hybrid wasn’t usually known for her patience or her sense of humor, but there was nothing she could refuse her mate. _And she calls me a gay puddle_ , Lexa thought, internally rolling her eyes.

Due to her vampiric nature, their daughter was forced to spend the day time in the safety of their home or the school, and they wouldn’t have much longer to wait before they could hug her as the sun was almost gone. With the help of some of Niylah’s descendants, Clarke was looking for a way to allow her — and other vampires — to walk under the sun. She might never be able to turn her into a hybrid, but there were some promising results with some spells, and she hoped to be able to give Madi a daylight ring by her next birthday. Marcus would, naturally, be the next one to get such a piece of jewelry if it worked.

“And how was your day?”

“Busy,” Clarke sighed. “Thankfully productive. The leaders of the factions of hunters in Northern and Southern America agreed to our terms. It took some convincing, of course, and a lot of posturing. I truly feared your sister was going to decapitate one of them when that idiot called her a puppy. But it worked in the end.”

“That’s great news, love. I’m proud of you.”

Apart from the school, the peace they had achieved with the hunters was their biggest accomplishment, and they had Indra to thank for that. Not long after Aden’s adoption, the dark-skinned former hunter had taken upon herself to meet up with some other hunters from various families she had encountered during her time with the Woods and Gustus. She had later justified it to a very concerned trio composed of Clarke, Lexa, and Anya by saying that there was no way she would let anyone come after her grandson, bringing tears to Lexa’s viridian eyes. The hunters didn’t appreciate being summoned by a werewolf, but the Argent name, along with the Woods one, carried enough weight in their community to grant her safe passage. It took weeks of arguments, but Indra managed to convince them that the hybrid pack wasn’t a threat, and the hunters formally agreed not to hunt them down and to give the pack a chance to deal with the feral wolves and rogue vampires before they intervened themselves.

After a few decades, with the success of the school and the slow diminution of the supernatural population and the incidents linked to it — as the new sups learned to better control themselves, they attacked humans less often and fewer of them were made with each passing year — the truce had grown stronger, until it had become a peace treaty. The pack still needed to meet with the hunters from time to time to make sure both sides kept their promises, but so far, they hadn’t had an incident in over 100 years. Lexa felt a smile pull at her lips at the thought that her aunt would be so proud to see the results of her intervention.

After living for a century as a werewolf, mostly spent spoiling Aden and keeping an eye on her nieces-turned-daughters, Indra had quietly passed in her sleep on a warm spring day. The pack had buried her next to Gustus, in their cemetery behind the house, finally reuniting the two souls who had chosen family over duty when it had mattered the most. Though almost 100 years had passed since that sad day, Lexa and Anya still visited their tomb regularly, along with the adjoining one for their parents that Clarke had erected not long after Gustus’s funeral. Alexander and Elora Woods might never have had the chance to meet their daughters’ soulmates and the rest of the pack, but there was no doubt in Lexa’s mind that, if they had lived long enough, they too would have chosen to stand by her and Anya’s side against Titus and any other hunter who wished to harm them.

“What are you thinking about?” Clarke asked, interrupting her reverie.

“My parents,” the brunette answered truthfully. “I wish they could have met you, and our family.”

“I am sure they would be immensely proud of the woman and mother you have become,” the blonde said with a sweet smile before kissing Lexa’s warm lips and pulling her away from the top of the hill. “Come, my love. Our daughter will be out soon, and you promised to take her hunting tonight.”

Lexa acquiesced with a nod and followed in her lover’s footsteps. She already knew where she would take Madi that night: the clearing where she had seen Clarke as a wolf for the first time. Though the soulmates had given the young vampire a summary of their story when they adopted her, it was time she heard how her mothers had come to be. And what better place to recount it all than where it had begun. Although, if she wanted to be exact, maybe she should tell her first of the night Anya had tracked Octavia and nearly gotten them both killed. It made for a more dramatic start after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END
> 
> Thank you all for reading this fic, I hope you enjoyed it!  
> If you did, please remember to leave a kudo, it will encourage more people to give it a shot! A comment would also be welcomed, as I love chatting with you all!
> 
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